BAT And ASH Go At It As The Maker Of Lucky Strike Gets Slammed For Marketing Cigarettes To Youngsters

British American Tobacco (or BAT), the world's second largest tobacco firm, is allegedly targeting around 750,000 young people annually through aggressive buzz marketing campaigns designed to encourage them to take up smoking, according to Action on Smoking, (or ASH).

British American, the makers of Lucky Strike, have been accused by the anti-smoking group of endorsing youth-oriented products and culture worldwide in order to promote what it dubs a "school of cool" among young smokers. They claim that their sponsorship of music festivals, sporting events, celebrity endorsements and viral marketing campaigns on youth-oriented social media sites such as YouTube and Flickr, are all designed to "recruit" around 750,000 young smokers each year worldwide.

The report claims many fashionable London bars had sponsorship deals with Lucky Strike, and that BAT has used ads on YouTube to promote Lucky Strike.

BAT has strongly denied suggestions it is targeting young smokers. Catherine Armstrong, said: "Children are not, and will never be, our audience."