Your Basic 3-Piece Suit
Who does this ad target? In their voluntary Code of Ethics, U.S. tobacco companies promised that "cigarette advertising shall not appear on television and radio programs, or in publications, directed primarily to persons under 21 years of age." And more recently, as part of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), tobacco companies agreed not to target youth under 18.
The Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council had a similar voluntary code, which included the provision that "cigarette advertising will be addressed to adults over 18 and directed solely to increase brand shares" (i.e., not to attract new smokers). In 1997, the Tobacco Act legislated that cigarette advertising must be restricted to people over 18 years of age.
In the U.S., the rising popularity of discount brands, such as Basic, has made cigarettes cheaper and more accessible. The market share of these brands rose from 10 per cent in 1987 to 36 per cent in 1993. It is predicted that this trend will be matched by an increase in smoking, especially among young people and poor populations.
Cigarette companies continue to advertise to youth. An August 2001 study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the cigarette companies increased their advertising in youth-oriented magazines after the Master Settlement Agreement. Advertising for the three brands most popular with youth - Marlboro, Camel and Newport - rose from $58.5 million in 1998 to $67.4 million in 1999.
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Sources: "Tobacco Industry Continues to Market to Kids," National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, September 19, 2001.
"The Global Tobacco Epidemic," Scientific American, May 1995.
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The Length You Go for Pleasure
This is Benson & Hedges' response to the smoking ban on major airlines. These sophisticated-looking smokers have been forced to "go out on a limb," to be more daring, more independent and free-thinking - and they have the airline seats with the best view! Which is the stronger message - this seductive image, or the hard facts on the bottom corner of the ad: "Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy"?
This ad is one of a series in Benson & Hedges' "empathy campaign." Another ad in the series shows smokers sitting at desks on miniature balconies outside their office windows. The caption reads "Have you noticed finding a place to smoke is the hardest part of your job? For a great smoke, put in for a window office."
It has been suggested that these ads have been designed to make smokers more comfortable with being nicotine addicts in a society that is increasingly outraged at the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. This outrage, and the tobacco control laws and policies it has produced, has begun to marginalize and isolate smokers. The ads offer empathy and suggest to smokers that they are not alone. They also evoke a certain rebelliousness and defiance - traits that may have led smokers to become hooked in the first place.
Martin Rothstein, former president of MacLaren Lintas Inc., one of Canada's largest advertising agencies, says that the empathy ads encourage smokers to take pride in their increasing isolation, and to "thumb their noses" at a society that should lighten up. "The industry wishes to depict smokers as people with a sense of humor and non-smokers as humorless and straight. The strategy is to continue to position the debate not so much between smokers and non-smokers, but rather between smokers and zealots."
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Source: "The Empathy Advertising Campaign - Preparing Smokers for the Inevitable Social Isolation," Tobacco Control: An International Journal 3:3, Autumn 1994.
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Genuine Taste
In mid-1991, RJR Nabisco created a jazz combo of cartoon camels; and billboard ads featuring this theme saturated minority communities. In New York City, Smokefree Educational Services created the following message on a fluorescent orange sticker, which began showing up on Camel ads all over the city: "This ad insults camels - Camels aren't dumb enough to smoke!"
Old Joe Camel, the cartoon spokes-character invented by R. J. Reynolds in 1988, shoots pool, rides motorcycles, hangs out with sexy women, and plays the saxophone. He was typically pictured in night clubs, at the beach, on a motorcycle, or in the boxing ring.
A study published in the 1991 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that nearly one-third of three-year-olds were able to match a picture of Joe Camel with cigarettes, and that six-year-olds were able to associate Old Joe with Camel cigarettes as easily as they associated Mickey Mouse with the Disney Channel. One Joe Camel ad published in National Lampoon and Rolling Stone included a coupon for a free pack of cigarettes with the purchase of another, and advised the reader to "ask a kind-looking stranger to redeem it." RJR isn't targeting kids? Do adults need help from a stranger to redeem a coupon?
Joe Camel's face is suggestively phallic - a feature that is sure to imprint on sexually sensitive youth. One educator noted: "I once asked an audience in Pennsylvania what this [Camel] ad was all about, and a 10-year-old in the front said, 'I know, I know, it's about boys' private parts!' Indeed, Old Joe is a camel with a surprisingly well hung nose - certainly enough to make pre-adolescents whisper and giggle." When the Camel campaign was launched, only 0.5 percent of U.S. teens smoked Camels. Three years later, this percentage had jumped to 32 per cent. During this same period, total Camel sales to minors soared from $6 million to $476 million.
In 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the federal ban on tobacco advertising went too far in violating the industry's right to freedom of speech. The Court supported its decision with the claim that there was insufficient proof that advertising directly affected tobacco consumption. However, in 1997 Parliament passed new tobacco control legislation that contained comprehensive restrictions on tobacco promotion: from billboards, to in-store displays, to sponsored events.
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Sources: The STAT Speaker's Guide and Slide Collection.
Richard Pollay in the video "Pack of Lies: Tobacco Advertising and Cultivation of Addiction."
"The Global Tobacco Epidemic," Scientific American, May 1995.
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Virginia Slims - Superslims
Many teenage girls are obsessed with their appearance, and the need to see themselves as being attractive. In today's culture, a prerequisite is to be thin. Philip Morris and other cigarette companies capitalize upon this perception by presenting cigarette smoking as a suitable alternative to a diet for being thin. Virtually every "feminine" cigarette includes words such as slim, light, thin, super-slim, ultra-light, etc. In this ad for Superslims from Philip Morris, it appears that darkroom technology has been used to stretch the already slender model to exaggerate her anorexic characteristics.
The tobacco industry began marketing women's brands in 1967. The women in the ads for these brands appeared sophisticated, independent, and very thin. In the years that followed the launching of this campaign, the number of adolescent women smokers rose from 3.7 per cent to 6.2 per cent. The number of adolescent men who smoked during the same period remained stable (U.S. National Health Interviews Survey data).
The percentage of adolescent (aged 15-19) female smokers in Canada is still higher than that of teen males. Twenty per cent of teenage boys in this age range, and 26 per cent of teenage girls in this age range, smoke either occasionally or regularly.
In 2001, Philip Morris launched a Virginia Slims ad campaign that encouraged women to "see yourself as a King." These ads used the metaphor of an ancient Egyptian female pharaoh to suggest that women are empowered by smoking. A fine image - except that lung cancer is now the number one killer of women.
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Sources: Press Release, February 1, 2001, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
"Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey, Annual 2000 Results," Health Canada.
The STAT Speaker's Guide and Slide Collection.
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And the future for the tobacco industry?
In Canada, the 1997 Tobacco Act restricted advertising to young people - but not sponsorship and lifestyle advertising. These forms of advertising link smoking to exciting and glamorous activities and events. Not only does sponsorship associate the product with a fun event, but the audience (including young people) is exposed to the imagery for an extended time.
In 1999, cigarette manufacturers spent their largest sums ever on advertising and promotion. Today, as sponsorship advertising is phased out and advertising becomes more restrictive, advertisers are trying new tactics. These include direct mail; point-of-sale advertising in retail outlets; promotional allowances, such as payments made to retailers to facilitate sales; and promotion of non-tobacco products, such as specialty items distributed with the purchase of cigarettes and branded T-shirts.
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Sources: Federal Trade Commission "Cigarette Report for 1999," issued 2001.
"Tobacco Advertising and Sponsorship Increase Children's Smoking," Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, 1996.
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Reprinted, with permission, from "Smoke-Free for Life," a smoking prevention curriculum supplement from the Nova Scotia Department of Health, Drug Dependency and Tobacco Control Unit, 1996. Adapted and updated, 2002.
