TAKE ACTION! Warner Bros films used to peddle death in Nigeria

[Anna White]

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Take Action! Warner Bros films used to peddle death in Nigeria
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Dear Friends,

Late last year, British American Tobacco launched a huge promotional
campaign in Nigeria for its Rothmans brand. The theme of the campaign
was "Experience It" and the main feature: blockbuster Hollywood films.
Free lit cigarettes and brand paraphanelia were handed out at events.
The double message: Experience Hollywood...Experience Smoking. For more
detailed information about this outrageous promotional campaign and
Essential Action's correspondence with Warner Bros about it, see below.

We are calling on Warner Bros to fully disclose its business
relationship with BAT, take concrete steps to prevent future use of its
films to peddle death abroad, and compensate Nigerian tobacco control
advocates for the harm done to their efforts.

     TAKE ACTION: Send a free fax to Barry M. Meyer, Chairman and
     CEO, Warner Bros
     http://petition.globalink.org/view.php?code=batnigeria

Thanks for participating and forwarding this alert on to your friends,
family, and colleagues!

Anna
Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control
Essential Action

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BACKGROUND
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/letter/ng0303/

Late last year, Adeola Akinremi of Journalists Advocacy for Safe
Environment and Tobacco Eradication (Nigeria) brought BAT's "Experience
It" cinema tour to Essential Action's attention. To read all about the
scandalous promotional campaign, click on the links below (VERY HIGHLY
RECOMMENDED!)

Short report on BAT's "Experience It" cinema tour by Adeola Akinremi,
JASETE
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/letter/ng0303/report.html

Hollywood Comes to Town in a Dome
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/letter/ng0303/thisdayonline.html

An Experience Worth a Deal
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/letter/ng0303/allafrica.html

Upon further investigation, we discovered that all the films featured -
Collateral Damage, Showtime, Ocean's Eleven, Romeo Must Die, & Matrix -
were Warner Bros films. So we contacted Warner Bros to find out if the
studio had given BAT permission to use the films. We were told that the
films must have been "pirated". Pressing Warner Bros further on the
issue resulted in a call from their lawyer informing us that they would
be ending all correspondence, so as not to hurt their "legal position."
Read Essential Action's correspondence with Warner Bros:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/letter/ng0303/correspondence.html

So we contacted the LA Times, and on March 5, an article came out on the
promotional campaign. In it, Warner Bros claims not to have given BAT
permission to use the films for a cinema tour in Nigeria.  However, the
article also notes that BAT bought the rights to screen the films last
spring from Warner Nu Metro in South Africa, which raises the question:
what DID BAT have the rights to use the films for, if not the Rothmans
"Experience It" tour? Presumably, BAT was not getting the films merely
to hold "a Warner Bros film night" for its employees! Read the LA Times
article:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/letter/ng0303/latimes.html

Essential Action made another effort to contact Warner Bros following
the LA Times story release, but so far no one has responded to our
specific questions and requests. We're hoping that a few hundred letters
from around the world will change that!

LETTER CAMPAIGN CO-SPONSORED BY:
* Journalists Advocacy for Safe Environment and Tobacco Eradication,
NIGERIA
* People Against Drug Dependence & Ignorance, NIGERIA
* Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria, NIGERIA
* Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control/Essential Action, USA
* Reality Check, USA

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Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control
Essential Action
P.O. Box 19405
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: +1 202-387-8030
Fax: +1 202-234-5176
Email: tobacco@essential.org
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco