Nyet Happening: Russian "Sweet Dreams" Teen Cigarettes Scrapped

Russian cigarette-maker Donskoy Tabak has dropped its plans for a teen-targeted brand.

The back-story: Russia’s Ministry of Health is putting together the “strictest anti-tobacco law to date,” which would outlaw lighting up in “trains, airports, and jet liners” as well as up the tax on cigarettes significantly, according to Vesti (and translated by GlobalVoices.com), tobacco manufacturers need to find new consumers to plunk down rubles to suck down their product, right? 

Mercifully, Donskoy Tabak, one of Russia’s largest tobacco companies, has been shamed out of its new line of cigarettes that were aimed at teens and young women, called “Sweet Dreams,” according to blogger Alexey Navalny (as translated by Global Voices).

Tabak “redesigned the cartons of its two ‘female’ slim cigarettes and engineered a sleeker, younger ad campaign,” Global Voices notes.

However, Navalny blogged about the company’s plans and showcased the before and after images of the art on the cigarette packaging in order to highlight that the company’s target audience was now teens and young women, raising the hackles of many across the Internet and leading the company to scrap the new brand.