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The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

November 11, 2004


9/11 terror used to sell cigarettes in Israeli papers

by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich,
THE JERUSALEM POST

A LOCAL advertising agency that claims there are "almost no holy cows" is using the image of a jet aiming at the doomed Twin Towers to sell cigarettes imported from Holland.

The ad for Max cigarettes, which appears in the Hebrew tabloids and was prepared by the Zarmon-Goldman agency, uses two cigarettes standing vertically, with the top quarter of one looking like it's about to fall as a jet heads for it.

"The Dutch [one] that put the Americans into shock [helem, in Hebrew] and took them out of LM," says the full-page ad for Max cigarettes. The LM refers to the best-selling US brand L&M, while a slangy pronunciation of the Hebrew word for shock sounds like LM.

"There's no arguing about taste; everyone has his own opinion," said Eilon Zarmon, an owner of the ad agency who was asked to say whether he thought the promotion was vulgar, given the fact that some 3,000 people died in the Islamist terror attack on New York's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. "We are not afraid of slaughtering holy cows," he added.

"There is a clear message here. The idea is to attack L&M; we are not afraid to start up with a big US cigarette maker. Max cigarettes are better than L&M. They taste better and are produced better. We think this ad is humorous, creative, young and impudent," Zarmon said, declining to reveal whether he smoked them himself.

There is nothing sacrosanct about the image of the exploding Twin Towers, he maintained, as "it has already been used in art and theater. One needn't get too excited about using it."

The advertisement will continue to run, he said. But when asked what he would do if the US Embassy in Tel Aviv expressed revulsion over the ad, Zarmon said: "We will consider our reaction if they say so. Embassy officials were unavailable for comment, as yesterday was a US holiday, Veterans' Day.

The ad agency owner was asked what he thought of a controversial potato chip ad currently running on Channel 2 TV. It shows an elderly man tripping his frail wife with his walking stick and, when she lands flat on her face, jabbing its end into her back to keep her down so she won't get her hands on a package of potato chips that fell on the floor. "It's a very funny ad," said Zarmon in admiration..

 

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