- RJR’s “Project SCUM” Targeted Gays, the Homeless, Immigrants and Youth
“Project SCUM” was R.J. Reynolds’ plan to increase sales of Camel cigarettes in the San Francisco area by marketing them to gay people in the Castro district, “rebellious, Generation X” -ers, people of “international influence” and “street people,” by introducing Camel cigarettes into less-traditional retail outlets like “head shops.” SCUM was an acronym that stood for “Sub-Culture Urban Marketing.” RJR’s rationale for the project was a higher incidence of smoking and drug use in these subcultures.
- Deneb (Wikipedia)
Deneb (/ˈdɛnɛb/) is a first-magnitude star in the constellation of Cygnus. Deneb is one of the vertices of the asterism known as the Summer Triangle and the “head” of the Northern Cross. It is the brightest star in Cygnus and the 19th brightest star in the night sky, with an average apparent magnitude of +1.25. A blue supergiant, Deneb rivals Rigel as the most luminous first-magnitude star. However, its distance, and hence luminosity, is poorly known; its luminosity is somewhere between 55,000 and 196,000 times that of the Sun. Its Bayer designation is α Cygni, which is Latinised to Alpha Cygni, abbreviated to Alpha Cyg or α Cyg.
- Project SCUM (Wikipedia)
Project SCUM was a plan proposed in 1995 by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR) to sell cigarettes to members of the “alternative lifestyle” areas of San Francisco, in particular the large number of gay people in the Castro and homeless people in the Tenderloin. The acronym “SCUM” officially stood for “subculture urban marketing”. Perhaps recognizing the offensive nature of its label, the marketing plan was later renamed Project Sourdough.