WARNING: This site deals only with the corporate corruption of science, and makes no inference about the motives or activities of individuals involved.
    There are many reasons why individuals become embroiled in corporate corruption activities - from political zealotry to over-enthusiastic activism; from gullibility to greed.
    Please read the OVERVIEW carefully, and make up your own mind.

OPINION ONLY

Professor Mizerski, after many years working for the FTC on cigarette advertising and promotion, and also after many more years in Business School academia, could find no evidence at all that "advertising causes people to start smoking, shapes attitudes towards smoking, or helps maintain cigarette use."

Which either suggests that he is the worst teacher of advertising theory in the western world, or that he was high on illicit substances at the time he made his declaration.

Of course, there is a third explanation. But since his declaration makes no mention of his expert statements being funded by tobacco interests, we must accept the purity of his motives ... and simply classify him as an idiot.

But at least he is honest in the services he offers. You can hire him as a witness through his consulting business.

Some key documents

• Professor of Marketing, College of Business, University of Florida
    Also at the Universities of Arizona and Cincinatti, and later at Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland and the University of Western Australia.
There are 2,396 documents in the tobacco archives which reference the Mizerski name, and at least two C/Vs See one C/V

• See also thecash-for-comment academic business/marketing network

1946 Feb 17: Born Chicago

1968: BS in Business Administration from Northwestern University, Evanston

1968 Sep: — Feb 1970 worked for the Florida Independent Newspaper, Gainesville Florida as an account executive and salesman. [

1971 Mar: —72 [or Dec 1973] Taught Advertising and Marketing at the University of Florida. [Different dates from different C/Vs]

1974: PhD from College of Business Administration, University of Florida, Gainesville

1974 Sep: — 1976 Taught Advertising and Marketing at the Arizona State University

1976 Sep: — Aug 1979 Taught Advertising and Marketing at the University of Cincinnati

1979 Oct: — Sep 1980 Staff consultant to Federal Trade Commission. He says that, in this position he investigated cigarette industry advertising and marketing practices ... including smoking initiation ... and whether advertising undercuts health warnings ... and the effectiveness of the then-current warning labels on packs.

1980 Sept: Joined Florida State University as Professor of Marketing

1980 Dec: —1992 This C/V says that during this period he acted as an ouside consultant to the FTC.

"Project Consultant. Responsible for providing counsel to the Federal Trade Commission on policy matters concerning marketing and advertising strategies and techniques as they relate to commission rules, guides, cases, and other activities; on research techniques and methods; and the consumer decision-making process."

1985: Director of the College of Business, Behavioral Laboratories at Florida State.

1989 Sep: He was working on contract for the FTC evaluating product advertising.

Presently, I am again working with the Federal Trade Commission as a consultant in an investigatiort of a consumer product promotion. My responsibilities include reviewing the advertising and other materials associated with the promotion to determine if those materials are false,
    misleading or deceptive, and the probable consumer response to those promotions.

    I am also working with the State of Florida as a consultant in an investigation of several consumer-oriented promotions. Again, I have been requested to review and analyze the advertising and promotional material associated with the promotions to determine if those materials are false, misleading or deceptive

The vast literature on advertising effects clearly shows that fears of these projected consequences are unfounded. Advertising for cigarettes has the same impact as advertising for other products who operate in mature markets — to affect changes in market share only.

    During the course of my work with the FTC in 1979-1980, I reviewed many articles and studies on the effect of advertising on the initiation of smoking. As a result of this work, I formed the opinion that cigarette advertising and promotion had no effect on an individual's decision to become a smoker.

    In summary, my research and that of others, as well as my study of the literature, has revealed no evidence to indicate that advertising causes people to start smoking, shapes attitudes towards smoking, or helps maintain cigarette use.

1989 Sep 7: Witness statement of Richard W Mizerski to be used in Thailand. He is an advertising academic — but he doesn't reveal that he is acting as witness for the Tobacco Institute. This has his biographical details.

1990 /E: Google Book "Leasing the ivory tower: the corporate takeover of academic" by Lawrence C Soley talks first about Professor Scott Ward of the Wharton Institute:

Ward's extracurricular activities, such as providing expert testimony in favor of the tobacco industry, must have been lucrative because he purchased a 16-room mansion, surrounded by a ten-foot-high brick wall for $550,,, in 1984, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The mansion was described in news reports of Ward's arrest for statutory rape and corruption of minors.

    Ward might be the only professor on the tobacco-company dole who has been charged with corrupting minors, but he is not the only professor who has failed to divulge tobacco-industry ties when writing articles about cigarette advertising. Florida State University marketing professor Richard Mizerski was hired by RJ Reynolds to rebut research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which showed that RJ Reynolds's Joe Camel character was targeting children.

    Needless to say, Mizerski issued a report claiming that the JAMA research was flawed. After the Mizerski's report was released, he was asked by the American Medical Association how much RJ Rynolds had paid him for his work. Mizerski refused to disclose the amount.

    He also didn't disclose that he was on the tobacco-company payroll in a published synopsis of his findings in the Proceedings of the 1993 Conference of the American Academy of Advertising. That report, which claimed that the JAMA articles were "conceptually and methodologically flawed," mentioned only Mizerski's university affiliation.

1990 June: [to July] Brennan Dawson's report of his activities to the Tobacco Institute's Communications Committee

Chairman Henry Waxman's Subcommittee on Health and the Environment held a hearing on the "Tobacco Control and Health Protection Act."

    A panel comprised of Charles O Whitley, Dr Richard Mizerski and Dr Gerald Goldhaber testified on behalf of The Institute, addressing allegations about the purpose of tobacco advertising, marketing strategies, smoking and youth and other related matters. Additionally, Floyd Abrams represented The Institute on a panel of First Amendment experts.

1990 July 12: A Tobacco Institute document lists the editorial successes of a large number of the paid cash-for-comments academics and consultants. It outlines what each has done in the recent past.

John Calfe
Douglas Kmiec
Richard Mizerski,

    7/12/90 Testimony on behalf of TI on advertising and its effects (H.R. 5041)

1990 Aug: Sam Chilcote to Members of the Executive Committee of the Tobacco Institute.

[A]t the June meeting, this Committee asked Institute staff to make further revisions in a proposal to develop a "celebrity" speakers' program. At the same time, Philip Morris offered to share with Institute staff its own list of potential candidates, that it had developed independently.

    Those tasks have been completed. And while it is clear that there are a number of individuals who can and are speaking out on our issues independent of The Institute, there also is much more that could be done. There are, for example, opportunities to develop higher profiles for those individuals with whom we enjoy an existing relationship, and to increase within the media an awareness of their availability.

    There also are a number of individuals who have been identified who do not currently have a relationship with the industry, but whose views appear to be compatible with our own. The addition of new speakers to our program will be expensive.

    Most of these individuals command substantial consulting fees; media and other activity will require a new commitment of funds, although an exact amount cannot be determined until candidates have been approached.

RICHARD MIZERSKI, professor of marketing, Florida State University, former FTC staff member.

1994 March 14: The minutes of a joint marketing/PR group of the UK, European and US tobacco industry on "plain packet" legislation. They intend to enlist a number of groups as allies.

• Professor Warburton, of Reading University is doing some work for Rothmans [He ran the ARISE organisation for Philip Morris]
• Contact to be made with WIPO, UNICE, AIM, ITMA, AIPPI, ICC.
• Coca-Cola are to be contacted as a potential ally
• A booklet/book containing authoritative rebuttal evidence from a selection of contributors should be published. A managing editor for this project should be appointed. Several potential names were identified and would be asked to submit
      ideas for the project :- [John] Luik, Gray [Robertson] and [Richard] Mizerski were being considered to head this project.

1994 Dec 10: Karen Darangan (PM) report on the industry's Surgeon General's Task Force. They have a "Wish List of Resources" that need to be developed for "proactive and defensive response" to the next Surgeon General's report on Smoking and Health.

• Burson-Marsteller and Young & Rubican are being contracted to help with research and the identification of scientific studies that will support tobacco.
• Others are putting together a list of third party experts, including the COURSE [Consortium] advisory board. [A school/parent program]
• They are updating their Youth Progams.

• Scott Ward
  
• Richard Mizerski (University of Florida)
• Martha Rogers
• Howard Beale (George Washington University)
• Joel Dubow, Editor, Food and Beverage Marketing
• Bob Peck, American Civil Liberties Union

1995: —99 He is now at Griffith University, Brisbane, in Queensland Australia as a professor of Marketing, in the Faculty of Commerce and Administration

1996 /E: One of the documents dealing with his studies on advertising, "The Purpose of Cigarette Advertising" says:

Professor Richard Mizerski of Griffith University in Australia tested a sample of children of three to six years of age on trade character recognition, product association and product affect.

    He found that 52% of the total number of children recognised Joe Camel with the level of recognition increasing by age with 41% of four year-olds, 63% of five year-olds and 72% of six year-olds.

    The study found that rates of liking of cigarettes were very low when compared with other products included in the study. Across the total sample, 85% of children did not like cigarettes. Disliking cigarettes increased with age and therefore with recognition, whereas the liking and recognition for other products included in the study, such as the Disney Channel with Mickey Mouse, hamburgers with Ronald McDonald, increased with age. [Terminal page missing]

1996 /E: Mike Moore, the Attorney General of Mississippi deposed Richard Mizerski while he was at Griffith University in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. [94 pages] This was part of the coordinated attack on the tobacco industry by a group of US State Attorney's General. Mizersky made some amazing claims about the uselessness of advertising:

  • He said he didn't believe "that Marlboro cars at Indi was an advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes"
    • He still held the opinion that cigarette advertising does not influence people to start smoking.

2000: —10 He now held the Chair of Marketing Discipline, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA.

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