Truth About Cigarette Advertising
Two lithe, tanned bodies lazily languish near a limpid river. The heads of the two persons are thrown back in poses of a supremely confident nature. Their facial features, though, are indistinguishable amidst the ephemeral haze which envelops them. Curiosity piqued and intently surveying the scene, one then notices the cigarettes dangling from the fingers of the pair. Advertisements such as this are now ubiquitous to the point of annoyance. These attempts to entice consumers to buy cigarettes are not simply trumped up exaggerations, as is the case with other products. Cigarette companies market their products with blatant lies. No one is shown with yellowed teeth or suffering from a hacking cough. Instead, smokers are always pictured as being in the pink of health. More alarmingly, smokers and smoking are perceived as being desirable. This perception has seemingly permeated every facet of popular culture. The sad truth today is—cigarettes are cool!
More overt instances of cigarette companies attempting to marry their products with images having positive connotations occurred in the first half of the twentieth century. Since then, however, the marketing juggernauts of these organizations have become more adept at promoting their brands in nearly every sphere of public life. In the earlier times though, the principal mode of product placement was via magazines. Here are two such magazine advertisements.
Kool magazine advertisement circa 1940
Camels magazine advertisement – circa 1950
In the first picture, which was put out during the Second World War, cigarettes are linked with the badges of the United States Armed Forces. Here, Kool attempts to ride the wave of support for Americ...
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...g—turning all of us into potential cigarette addicts. I am of the firm opinion that legislature should be passed which prevents these companies from advertising in certain fields, particularly those pertaining to healthy pursuits such as sports. But, then again, these laws would have to be passed by many people who sit on the boards of, or had election campaigns funded by, cigarette companies. Those changes don’t seem too likely, do they?
Works Cited
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Associated Press 13 Oct. 2006
Haralambos, Michael. Sociology: Themes and Perspectives. 3rd ed. London:
HarperCollins, 1991.
Nocera, Joe. “If It's Good for Philip Morris, Can It Also Be Good for Public Health?”
New York Times 18 June. 2006: B46.
Many people may think that creating a success advertisement is easy. That you can simply throw compelling facts and bright colors at an audience and it will grab their attention compelling them to buy your product. However, this is not this case. The advertisement needs to reach the viewer on multiple levels. A vintage Camel cigarette advertisement from 1946 does just that. It is a great representation of the complexity of creating a successful campaign.
The young professionals are not only the focal point in the center of the image, they are also considerably larger than any other element, taking up almost two thirds of the illustration. This drives home the point that younger individuals truly are targeted by this ad. Additionally, the RJ Reynolds company gave the primary slogan “Salem Spirit” a very large and easily legible font, ultimately making it the only text in the image truly discernable from a distance. Clearly, the advertisers want viewers to place greater importance on these two items than on anything else in the picture. The truthful information, in other words the Surgeon General’s Warning in the lower left part of the image as well as the potentially harmful contents of each cigarette just above it, is noticeably smaller and thus deprecated. This coerces the target audience into focusing on the positive impact that Salem cigarettes will have on their lives while deceptively drawing attention away from the
Tobacco companies should be prevented from using advertising tactics that target teenagers. There has always been controversy as to how tobacco companies should prevent using advertising tactics to target teenagers. As controversial as this is tobacco companies shouldn’t advertise teen smoking. Many teens may be lured to believe cigarette advertising because it has been part of the American Culture for years, magazine ads and the media target young people, and these companies receive a drastic increase financially; however, the advertising by these cigarette companies has disadvantages such as having to campaign against their own company, limiting their cigarette advertising and becoming a controversial dilemma as to encouraging teenagers to smoke. From billboards to newspaper advertisements, cigarette promotions started becoming part of the American Culture.
...ut throughout the past two decades, the realization of folly has called for a step in a new direction. For our society to finally rid ourselves of this parasite the change would have to be very slow; it would have to start with putting the entire industry in the hands of the government. In this way the corporation owners would truly be penalized while the product would be safer and the country would benefit from the profits. Marketing to children, testing underage smokers, using money to avoid the law, manipulating nicotine and suppressing research are among many of the immoral practices of the industry. Although they are very numerous and diverse they all share the same motive: to get rich. Money has become more important than compassion in the minds of the industry’s players. The success of the industry is merely a reflection of its immoral practices.
Modern advertising companies rely heavily on subliminal messaging to entice their target audiences. Advertisements are often crafted for the purpose of appealing to specific characteristics in the hopes of drawing the attention and appealing to the senses of prospective buyers. Tobacco companies have become notorious for the implementation of such techniques. The images portrayed in many of “big tobacco’s” ads stimulate a variety of senses and emotions. One common tactic used by Camel cigarettes (a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.) is to isolate and promote life’s pleasures, and American patriotism. A specific Camel ad found in Elle, a common, upscale women’s magazine is a perfect example of such advertising. “Pleasure To Burn” is the slogan centered upon the advertisement’s page. Above the slogan, “CAMEL” is written, all letters in Camel’s trademark font. A beautiful orange sunset serves as a mesmerizing background to an attractive, young women relaxing and enjoying a cigarette on the back of a pristine classic car. The image is painted in the style of the early ‘50s “pin-up doll” image. Smoke lazily wafts up through the lettering from the cigarette positioned directly beneath the word “Burn”. The woman relaxes lazily, eyes closed, facing up towards the orange sunset. There is no question that she is blissfully enjoying her cigarette, and her surroundings. She is dressed in the uniform of a diner waitress, complete with hat, apron, and “JANE” stenciled upon her left breast patch. Rather than conjure the stereotypical images of young women on roller-skates rushing around busily serving patrons, the subject of this ad is very much relaxes, and very much alone. Rather than appear to be...
Laird, Pamela, “Consuming Smoke: Cigarettes in American Culture.” University of Colorado at Denver. Author of Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing. 1998
Set in a black background, the advertisement displays a man on the left side with a cigarette between his lips. The tip of the cigarette creates smoke that fills the right side of the frame, with the smoke taking the shape of a “smoking” gun with its barrel pointing back at the man. At the bottom of the picture, a line of text can be seen that says “Kill a Cigarette and Save a Life. Yours.” Given these elements, the main idea of the image is that smoking kills. Particularly, smoking can kill the
...rictions, and carry out an antithesis campaign against tobacco advertising. With more adds showing teens the harms of tobacco usage and through education, this use of “counter-adding” could go a long way in terms of preventing more youth from picking up such a bad habit. In addition, I think far more legislation should be aimed towards restricting what is actually being put into cigarettes rather than advertisements, as these toxins and poisons are what responsible for the 430,000+ average deaths each year from smoking. Yet, today is today, and as long as companies like Altria and Reynolds American have the money play Washington they’ll get what they want. Now its just up to everyone else, for the sake of the health of our future, to help push legislation that will help deter the aims of companies that basically distribute cancer to hundreds of thousands each year.
The evidence, while unsubstantiated, is convincing. Hard data is used to prove the point, and it is stated that cigarette production tripled between 1914 and 1919, rising from 18 billion to 54 billion cigarette. Class is arguably a factor in this apparent spike in cigarette smoking, as soldiers were generally seen to be upstanding members of society. Gender plays a massive role, as even though the war would have required the full effort of every American, it was the men used in advertising. The linking of patriotism, soldiers, and cigarettes is undoubtedly a brilliant marketing manoeuvre. The author falters as he claims cigarettes became tied with the positive values of American masculinity. While the claim is cited, and is conceivable, it is still unproven within the
The rhetorical appeal, ethos, also has an effect on the images’ message. Your advertisement is endorsed by an activist website called thetruth.com. It is a well-known website dedicated to exposing the truth of big tobacco companies and “inspiring action in the fight to end smoking.” This support validates your advertisement and assures your audience you are a credible source worth listening
The tobacco industry consists of many competitors trying to satisfy a specific customer need. Companies such as Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Brown and Williamson, and Lorillard hold almost the entire market share in the tobacco industry. While each company has different advertising and marketing techniques, they all target the same customer group. Tobacco companies try their best to generate interest in their particular brand or brands. Companies market a number of attributes that usually include, but are not limited to: taste, flavor, strength, size and image in order to distinguish themselves from competitors (Business Week 179, November 29, 1999). However, all tobacco companies are satisfying the same needs. Many long-time smokers are addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes. They smoke because the nicotine is needed to help them feel normal (Focus group). Many addicts go through withdraw without nicotine. All tobacco companies have nicotine in their cigarettes, which fulfills the need of long-time smokers. Other smokers depend on cigarettes in social settings. Many smoke to look sophisticated and mature. Tobacco companies make many kinds of cigarettes that target different groups. Social smokers may perceive certain brands as more sophisticated, and therefore they shy away from other lesser-known brands. For example, a person who smoked generic cigarettes at the bar may be perceived as uncultured. On the other hand, the smoker with the Marlboro Lights may be more socially accepted because they have a brand name product (Focus group). Many types of cigarettes cater to the many markets of smokers who want to portray a certain image in social settings. Tobacco companies do not create the need to smoke, but try to generate interest in their particular brand (Hays, New York Times, November 24, 1999). Overall, the tobacco companies satisfy consumer demand for the millions of adult Americans who choose to use tobacco by providing differentiated products to different target markets of smokers.
Cigarette advertisements give the feeling that smokers are "bursting at the seams with joy" and that smoking is useful to you. Shockingly, nothing could be further from reality. The U.S. government has marked cigarettes as an unsafe medication that causes lung malignancy, coronary illness, and numerous different genuine sicknesses and conditions. Numerous individuals everywhere throughout the nation are discussing whether tobacco organizations ought to be permitted to publicize cigarettes or even to make cigarettes in today 's general public ("Analyzing Assorted Tobacco Advertisements").
One way that the tobacco industry can be more ethical is changing their advertising strategy. I believe that today’s advertising strategy is very misleading about cigarettes. Examples of this unethical advertising is in Argentina, here 20 percent of television advertising is spent on smoking commercials, as well as in countries in and around Africa there are billboards that depict a man in a business suit stepping out of a black Mercedes as a chauffeur holds the door. This displays that cigarettes make people classy and sophisticated, making cigarettes look not only harmless but stylish. Another good example of unethical depiction on cigarettes is in Nigeria; here they promote a cigarette for graduates, with a picture of a university and a student in a cap and gown. As if this wasn’t a misleading visual they add a slogan that says, "A very important cigarette for very important people." These ads and slogan are ...
Big brands like Marlboro spend 70% of their profits on advertisements in 3rd world countries to try and get the people who do not know the consequences of smoking.In total tobacco companies spend over ten billion dollars on advertisement world wide. (who.int) The advertisement that is going on is on the covers are are cartoon animals and images that show if you smoke you will be
Advertising and marketing of cigarettes are a big factor as to why teenagers smoke. There are promotions for different brands like Joe Camal and Marlboro Man. They’re some of the biggest marketing campaigns on T.V. Both companies have giveaways like T-shirts in return for coupons accumulated by buying their brand of cigarettes. Different cigarette companies make the...