Advertisements are the major component of a company’s marketing strategy, and are implemented in order to inform and persuade consumers regarding a certain product, service or institution. The average consumer is surrounded by hundreds of advertisements each and every day. Advertisements are displayed through various means to a large audience, found through the Internet, billboards, or even when listening to the radio. Advertisers use a combination of marketing techniques to draw the attention of the consumer, however, some of the techniques used are either illegal, unethical, or both. When a company attempts to promote a dangerous product, that’s where restrictions are put in place. In recent years, the Government of Canada’s rules and regulations on tobacco advertisements have become exponentially stricter, while alcohol advertisements are still fully allowed amongst the many media platforms. This directs us to question the difference in the two substances, and whether this political notion is actually hypocritical. Stakeholders examined in the paper are the viewers of the advertisements, plus the listeners of the advertisements, specifically the younger audience. Through a brief history of the tobacco advertising rules and regulations, this paper shall depict the ethical issues within advertising alcoholic beverages, and display evidence supporting that alcoholic beverages are no less of a danger than tobacco products, and ultimately should possess the same advertising restrictions. Evidence suggests that the majority of Canadians are actually in favor of restrictions on alcohol advertising. The hypocritical idea of allowing alcohol to be advertised, but removing all tobacco related marketing is further examined.
In 1997, the...
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...vention Into Priority Area Schools: A Media Literacy Approach. Health Promotion Practice, 12, 152S-158S.
Canadian Tobacco Advertising Regulations. OMAC. Retrieved March 9, 2014, from http://www.omaccanada.ca/Sites/omac/multimedias/Ad%20Guidelines/2012/PDFs%20English/Canadian%20Tobacco%20Advertising%20Guidelines-EN-NOV2012.pdf
Fleming, K., Thorson, E., & Atkin, C. K. (2004). Alcohol Advertising Exposure And Perceptions: Links With Alcohol Expectancies And Intentions To Drink Or Drinking In Underaged Youth And Young Adults. Journal of Health Communication, 9(1), 3-29.
Jiang, N., & Ling, P. M. (2011). Reinforcement Of Smoking And Drinking: Tobacco Marketing Strategies Linked With Alcohol In The United States. American Journal of Public Health, 101(10), 1942-1954.
McKenzie, D. (2010). Alcohol advertising and young people's drinking. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Minkler, Meredith, Lawrence Wallack, and Patricia Madden. "Alcohol and Cigarette Advertising in 'Ms.' Magazine." Journal of Public Health Policy 8, no. 2 (1987): 164-79.
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.
The fact is that with the amount of money spent on advertising the impact is unavoidable, the author points this out in several ways. People believe they are blocking out the message of the ad, when in reality they are often the most effected. “The addict is the ideal consumer”, this stands to reason, as these are people looking for something to fill a void. The alcohol industry monopolizing on the person, who either has a problem
Cigarette advertisements reflect society’s love-hate relationship with tobacco products through the ages. During its heyday of popularity, cigarette advertisements were not governed in any way, allowing tobacco companies to use any means necessary to sell their products including advertising during popular children’s television shows. This practice came under scrutiny around 1964 when the Surgeon General released its first report on “smoking and health.” This report stated that smoking may be hazardous to your health. Soon to follow the release of this report was a ban on all cigarette advertisements on television and radio.
Every year, children watch an average of 20,000 commercials, with 2000 of them promoting alcoholic beverages. While many view them as harmless, logic would contend that these advertisements play an important role in influencing the attitudes and ideals that society’s youths relate to alcohol consumption. Many aspects of modern media deliver promises that once one engages in “drinking,” the will merge with a high society way of life where popularity, desirability and ultimately happiness are easily attained. While peers and families, environment and heredity, all contribute to one’s inclination to drink, more so, the messages revealed in TV shows, movies, mainstream music and even everyday commercials are constant and consistent in their encouragement of drinking alcohol.
Economically, cigarettes are highly advertised, extremely affordable and accessible to practically anyone. As for the advertisement aspect in the sale of cigarettes, tobacco companies spend billions of dollars per year to advertise their brands. This money is spent on the actual advertisement, and also on manipulating the subconscious minds of teenagers. (Reynolds, 1999) Billboards and magazines lure teenagers to smoke, by using teen idols and appealing photos in their ads. The Canadian Government has been attempting to put a stop to tobacco industries using teen idols in selling their products, by passing Bill C-71, a legislation that forbids tobacco companies from putting up signs for events in which they sponsor. The car racer and teen idol, Jacques Villeneuve can no longer be advertised in his car racing suit as Rothman's cigarettes advertisements are highly visible on it, as this would give off a negative message to teens who look up to him. The only exception to this law however, is that the signs may be put up at the site of the event, in bars or in newspaper...
Thank you for smoking, it’s what big companies like Marlboro and Camel want to let us know, and keep smoking. Tobacco has been around for thousand of years, but today’s cigarettes contain many harmful and poisonous toxins. Yet, its simple: Tobacco smoking kills, reduces economic productivity, and strengthens poverty. But lets be frank, everyone’s aware of these issues already, everyone’s out to get cigarette companies; however, there’s a bigger problem. What happens when cigarette companies target today’s children?
We all see numerous advertisements everyday and think nothing of them. Instead of reading through them we just look at them for what they are, maybe colorful, full of fun and catchy words or phrases, and pictures plastered on billboards, in magazines, newspapers, etc. From listening to my english instructor I realized that ads are advertising a lot more than they claim to be, especially ones about alcohol. In my essay about "false advertisements" I've elaborated on how ads about alcohol are sending subliminal messages to certain groups of people in society. It was somewhat hard to explain the messages behind the ads, but once they are understood it's surprsing to see what's been discovered!
According to WHO, "each year 6 million people die due to tobacco related illnesses. If current trends continue, it is projected that by 2030, tobacco will be responsible for more than 8 million deaths each year and 80% of these premature deaths will be among people living in low- and middle-income countries.” Tobacco advertising is a worldwide marketing campaign that displays bright and colorful images that appeal towards teens and young adults. These images portray false ideal of masculinity, youth, and freedom. The prohibitions of tobacco advertising should be enforced by the government in order to prevent tobacco industries from targeting undeveloped countries with poor education, reduce tobacco related illnesses,
Information: Failure to provide good information (a public good) is a major cause of market failure and brings about the consequences of drinking alcohol hence reducing the efficiency of the market. Evidence suggests that advertising has strong detrimental effect on consumption, particularly for youth. (Saffer and Dave, 2003). The development of Markets promoting alcohol consumption benefits the industry groups however no such private incentives provide information that presents the negative consequences of consumption.
Fox, RichardJ.;Krugman, Dean M.; Fletcher, James E.;Fischer, Paul M., “Adolescents’ attention to beer and cigarette print ads and associated product warnings.” Journal of Advertising, 9/22/98. vol. 27. p. 57. Online. Electric Library.
To illustrate, advertisers of unethical companies that produce dangerous products such as guns, cigarettes, and alcohols exploit the opportunity of showing their products through films or TV shows; that could be considered as negative advertising. An enormous number of viewers watch the TV every day as a usual habit, and advertisers should make in their consideration that young people like children and teenagers are watching these programs. On the other hand, using product placement as a way to advert products could have a huge marketing risk; companies spend too much money to show out their products. According to the Federal Trade Commission (1999) explained that alcohol producers spent two to three times more than their media expenditures in unmeasured promotions like sponsorships, internet advertising, and product placement. However, this great disbursement could be considered as a combination between the huge marketing risk and the negative advertising as they are showing alcohols for the TV viewers, which may include children and teenagers. Furthermore, companies that spent too much money in product placement are facing the huge risk of promoting their products in a movie or television show that could
In addition to, underage youth sees more alcohol advertisements than adults combined. Finally, purchasing alcohol by underage drinkers throughout 1993 to 1999. Throughout the years alcohol advertisements have increased the adolescent to drink and that causes more the underage youth to hurt themselves and others. Also they can damage their body if they keep on drinking more and more.
Exposure to alcohol advertising is an everyday occurrence. Alcohol advertising is persuasive not only to adults but to those who are too young to buy alcohol legally. Although parents and peers have a large impact on youth decisions to drink, marketing also has a significant impact by influencing the attitudes of parents and peers and helping to create an environment that promotes underage drinking. Alcohol companies focus billions of dollars on advertising their products and still claim that the effect is minimal. I pose a few questions that are; who are the targets of alcohol advertising? How does alcohol advertising affect the people targeted by alcohol companies? Finally what actions are being taken to prevent the encouragement of underage drinking or other alcohol related tragedies?
Saffer, Henry. "The Effect of Advertising on Tobacco and Alcohol Consumption." The National Bureau of Economic Research. The National Bureau of Economic Research, Dec. 2004. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.