Duty free cigarettes pulled from shelf after Kiwi furore

"New Zealand-branded" cigarettes have been pulled from the shelves of the nation's duty free stores after a storm of negative publicity.

DFS said it did not intended to disrespect consumers by seling the cigarettes, which feature black packaging with a silver fern and the words 'New Zealand'.

The cigarettes were made in Luxembourg.

New Zealand's Smokefree Coalition and Te Reo Marama had called for the immediate removal of all branding from all cigarette packs following outrage over NZ-branded cigarettes.

Marketing researcher Professor Janet Hoek said that the new brand, with the description "luxuriously mild cigarettes", only adds weight to the case for removing all branding from cigarette packets. Research by Hoek and her associates has shown that the descriptions "light" and "mild" can be misleading.

"We know that smokers inappropriately associate health attributes with these descriptors. Add an attempt to associate these new cigarettes with a "clean, green" brand like New Zealand, and you have seriously misleading packaging," said Hoek.

Hoek supported the move to ban branding from cigarette packets, leaving health warnings as the only pictorial image.

The Smokefree Coalition and Te Reo Marama (the Maori Smokefree Coalition) said the Luxemborg-sourced cigarettes were an affront to all New Zealanders.

Smokefree Coalition director Mark Peck has described the cigarettes as an outrageous attempt to exploit New Zealand's image while Te Reo Marama director Shane Kawenata Bradbrook says using the silver fern, an internationally recognisable symbol of New Zealand, is an insult.