Changing Cigarette Advertising for a Decade

Throughout my essay I will discuss how drastically the advertisement of cigarettes has changed over the decades and how societies perception of smoking has been completely altered over the years.

Over the last 75 years tobacco companies have used a number of tactics to increase their sales and to try and get people hooked on their product. In the 1930s/1940s before studies showed the dangers cigarettes can cause companies hired doctors and dentists to endorse their products. The reasoning behind this was to reduce people’s concerns about the dangers of smoking. By using the medical community for their adds people were reassured that cigarettes were ‘not’ bad for you and therefore cigarette companies did not lose out on business. At this time doctors were not aware of how dangerous smoking actually was and had not yet discovered the link between smoking and lung cancer, however smoking was not only being promoted as healthy but was also being recommended as a treatment for throat irritation. People were aware that cigarettes could cause coughing and throat irritation however people were led to believe that only certain cigarettes caused this. Certain companies used people believing that cigarettes could cause problems to the throat to their advantage by saying that their cigarettes were better than others as they did not cause any complications. The American cigarette company ‘Lucky Strikes’ were the first company to use this to their advantage. In the 1930s they published an add claiming 20,679 Physicians agreed that “Luckies are less irritating” to the throat. Luckies used a biased approach in order to get this number and to lead people to believe that they were medically better for the throat. With the number of deaths from lung cancer on the rise people started to worry and yet another advertising approach had to be put in place. Cigarette companies led people to believe that they were still unsure if cigarettes were harmful and that significant research would be done in order to find out. Companies eventually had to move away from using doctors and dentists to help them promote and adapt a new advertising tactic. (Tobacco Stops With Me A program of TSET) .

The new tactic brought in in the 1950s and 60s was to use numerous celebrities especially movie stars to promote smoking. The idea behind paying countless Hollywood actors, sports stars etc. to promote cigarettes was to try and influence people to take up smoking so that they could be ‘just like’ their favourite celebrity. Not only were celebrities paid to promote the companies cigarettes the tobacco firms also funded print and radio adverts to promote the stars and their films. It wasn’t only celebrities that were endorsing cigarettes several athletes were involved too with many of them promoting more than one brand. ‘Mantle’ an outfielder for the New York Yankees promoted both Viceroy and Camel. Athletes promoting cigarettes is certainly a thing of the past nowadays athletes promote products of nutritional value, products that are essential to use to help with your performance etc.

Cigarette campaigns began advertising smoking as the glamourous, fashionable and feminine thing to do in order to target woman to smoke. In the twentieth century when cigarettes were first advertised to woman they linked smoking to changes in social custom such as short, figure hugging revealing dresses, dancing and dating. Soon after smoking had a hold over woman. The women in these cigarette advertisements were always young, attractive and stylish. By getting these women to advertise cigarettes the companies were enticing both men and women to buy the product. Men were simply buying them due to not being able to resist buying a packet with a ‘sexy’ good looking woman on it. Women on the other hand wanted to relate to the gorgeous women in the advertisement’s. Smoking was being advertised as the stylish, sociable and feminine thing to do therefore all woman wanted to get involved. Many cigarette advertising campaigns involving women were responsible for an increase in the company’s sales, for example Lucky Strikes advertising campaign in the 1920s. In the 1920s Lucky Strikes new advertising campaign was responsible for increasing ‘the brands cigarettes sales more than 300 percent in the first year’. The quote that they used was ‘reach for a lucky instead of a sweet’. The idea behind this was to try and get the message across to woman that instead of being unhealthy and eating sweets why not be ‘healthy’ and have a cigarette. Seemingly luckies aim was to prey on women’s insecurities about their weight and diet. Cigarette ads did not only feature attractive woman attractive men were also used in advertisement’s. Cigarette companies wanted to advertise smoking as an attractive thing to do in order to invite more people to take it up. The men used in the ads were always strong and very manly again making smoking look very appealing and pleasant.

In the 1990s tobacco companies in my opinion carried out one of the most outrageous advertising campaigns of all; they introduced cartoon characters in to their advertisement’s in order to make cigarettes more appealing for kids. They made the packages colourful also as they wanted them to be kid friendly. Some companies used pictures of babies in their advertisements as they wanted to highlight that smoking was not only acceptable in the family home but also a respectable thing to do. These images of the babies also reinforced the ‘healthy’ message behind smoking. One of the flabbergasting ads I came across featured Santa Clause advertising Pall Mall cigarettes ”Puff by puff…you’re always ahead with pall mall”. Having Santa smoking was completely normalizing smoking for kids. Santa is supposed to be this magical man who kids look up to and obsess over hence why smoking to the younger generation was nothing out of the ordinary. Cigarettes companies also sponsored a lot of events in an approach to try and target people at their favourite events. 

After a number of regulations being put in to place advertising these deadly products in a good light has been prohibited since 2003 in the UK. In May 2000 the Minister for Health and Children in Ireland banned tobacco advertisement and sponsorship in the hope to put a stop to children and teenagers smoking as there had been an increase. For the majority of smokers their addiction begins during their youth therefore the hope was that if the advertisement of tobacco was banned the younger generation would no longer be used to seeing ads encouraging people to smoke and it would hopefully become a less normal thing to do. The unfortunate reality is that smoking related illnesses kill half of those who smoke as a result of this the Minister for Health and Children was determined to ‘alter for the better’ this terrible statistic. There are now advertisements to try and encourage people to stop smoking and try to highlight the harmful effects smoking can have on people’s lives. One of Irelands anti-smoking adverts “I will survive” which was released in 2017 by Irelands government health service ‘the HSE’ became so popular that New York wanted to play it on their channels and it was therefore imported across the Atlantic to hit their TV screens in the hope it can help as many people as possible. The ad is about people deciding to quit as they sing along to ‘I will survive’. These are the type of cigarette ads that grace our screens these days in comparison to the ads back in the day advertising smoking as an attractive and healthy thing to do. 

In 2013 cigarette packaging in Ireland was completely changed. Ireland decided to follow the footsteps of Canada and Brazil and introduce packages with shocking and graphic images on them in the hope that more people would become aware of what smoking can actually do to your body. The main hope was that it would really motivate smokers to quit smoking having seen these disturbing images and what smoking does to our precious bodies. When similar packaging was presented in Brazil it resulted in ‘56 percent’ of people becoming more conscious of the serious consequences smoking can have on your health. In Canada it resulted in a huge rise in the number of people who planned to stop smoking after seeing the vivid images. ‘A picture is 1000 words’ this is what was anticipated by introducing the graphic pictures on the cigarette packages. The new rule of having realistic photos showing a number of the harmful health effects smoking can cause was the most significant change to cigarette packages in 35 years. Before these pictures were put on to packages a lot of people thought they were aware of all the effects smoking can have on people’s health however these pictures made a lot of people realize there are a lot more effects then the main ones that most people are already informed of. Doctors now vouch for these labels and say they can be very affective. This shows the huge difference in societies perception of smoking over the years, doctors are no longer advertising cigarettes as healthy they now try their very best to try and get the message across of how unhealthy smoking is. 

A couple of years after the vivid images on cigarette packaging were introduced it was decided that another change would be made to the packaging in order to make the packaging look even less appealing. While the packages now had graphic images on them they still remained colourful. The plan was to make packages look even less attractive by removing the colour and the logos of the various brands from them. For example silk cut red and silk cut blue would no longer have red and blue on their packaging. The new boxes are now all the same neutral colour and the images on them are a lot more prominent. These changes have been made to cigarette packaging over the last few years purely to try and put an end to as many people smoking as possible. The aim is to decrease the appeal of tobacco as much as possible to prevent people from buying them. Ireland is the fourth country in the world that has removed the logos from their cigarette packaging. Cigarette packaging in Ireland is now as plain as you can get therefore advertising tobacco like they used to do back in the day has gone completely out the window. In the budget 2020 cigarette prices rose by an additional 50c bringing them to 13.50 a packet. The prices of them continue to rise every year when the budget is announced. This is also another way of putting people off buying them. Consumers in Ireland now face the highest priced tobacco in Europe. 

The main theme in all of the above advertisements that I explained is that smoking is healthy. It was healthy according to doctors and dentists, it was healthy for athletes to smoke, it was healthier for women to smoke than to eat sweets and it was even healthy for kids to smoke according to all the cigarette ads over the years. Today everyone is aware of the dangers of smoking and how it can kill. This is exactly how societies perception of smoking has been completely altered over the years. People now know of the huge risks smoking can cause on people’s lives. Advertising smoking in a respectable and wholesome light is absolutely prohibited. Many matters have been put in place in order to make smoking as unappealing and unattractive as possible whereas many years ago adverts used attractive people to make it look like an appealing thing to do. Packaging was colourful and adverts showed beautiful woman and strong manly men having a good time, dating, dancing etc. There is a huge contrast in the packaging today. The packaging is now dull with no colour at all and there are horrific images used of people dying, black lungs, children looking harmed by the effects of their parents smoking etc. Societies perception of smoking has well and truly been altered.

Bibliography

1. Cigarette advertising themes. (n.d.). Babies. Retrieved from tobacco.standford.edu: http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/images.php?token2=fm_st142.php&token1=fm_img4327.php&theme_file=fm_mt016.php&theme_name=Infants%20&%20Children&subtheme_name=Babies
2. Elliott, S. (2008, October 6th). When doctors, and even santa, endorsed tobacco. Retrieved from nytimes.com: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/media/07adco.html
3. Elliott, S. (2008, October 6). When doctors,and even santa, endorced tobacco. Retrieved from nytimes.com: https://www.adweek.com/creativity/this-irish-anti-smoking-ad-is-so-good-its-now-running-in-new-york/
4. Hughes, F. B. (2019, October 8th). Budget 2020: cigarette prices to rise by 50c to 13.50 from midnight. Retrieved from irishmirror.ie: https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/budget-2020-cigarettes-price-increase-20537784
5. Hyland, P. (2013, February 1st). Graphic images to appear on ciggarette packages from today. Retrieved from thejournal.ie: https://www.thejournal.ie/cigarette-packaging-graphic-images-ireland-777839-Feb2013/
6. Little, B. (2019, September 11). When cigarette companies used doctors to push smoking. Retrieved from history.com: https://www.history.com/news/cigarette-ads-doctors-smoking-endorsement
7. Mastroianni, B. (2019, August 26th). FDA propsoes graphic warnings for cigarette packages. Will they work? Retrieved from healthline.com: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/new-graphic-cigarette-warnings-will-they-work
8. McMahon, A. (2017, September Saturday 30th). plain cigarette packaging comes in to force. Retrieved from irishtimes.com: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/plain-cigarette-packaging-comes-into-force-1.3239795
9. Nudd, T. (2018, January 5th). The Irish anti smoking ad is so good, its now running in New York. Retrieved from adweek.com: https://www.adweek.com/creativity/this-irish-anti-smoking-ad-is-so-good-its-now-running-in-new-york/
10. Pollak, S. (2018, February 22th). Plain cigarette packaging hit shelves across republic. Retrieved from irishtimes.com: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/plain-cigarette-packaging-hits-shelves-across-republic-1.3401752
11. reporter, D. m. (2008, September 26th). Revealed: The Hollywood stars that were paid thousands to promote smoking. Retrieved from dailymail.co.uk: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1061713/Revealed-The-Hollywood-stars-paid-thousands-promote-smoking.html
12. Roche, B. (2000, May Tuesday 30th). Tobacco advertising and sponsorship banned . Retrieved from irishtimes.com: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/tobacco-advertising-and-sponsorship-banned-1.276446
13. Smith, A. (2018, September Wednesday 12th ). These are the adverts that told people smoking was good for them. Retrieved from metro.co.uk: https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/12/these-are-the-insane-adverts-that-told-people-smoking-was-good-for-them-7936951/
14. Tobacco stops with me A program of TSET. (n.d.). The history of tobacco marketing: its a scary story. Retrieved from Stopswithme.com: https://stopswithme.com/history-tobacco-marketing-scary-story/
15. Tobacco Stops With Me A program of TSET. (n.d.). The history of tobacco marketing: its a scary story. Retrieved from Stopswithme.com: https://stopswithme.com/history-tobacco-marketing-scary-story/
16. Tobacco Stops With Me A program of TSET. (n.d.). The history of tobacco marketing: its a scary story. Retrieved from Stopswithme.com: https://stopswithme.com/history-tobacco-marketing-scary-story/
17. Truth initiative. (2017, April 4th). Slim and stylish: How tobacco companies hooked woman by 'feminizing' cigarettes. Retrieved from truthinitiative.org: https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/tobacco-industry-marketing/slim-and-stylish-how-tobacco-companies-hooked-women
18. Yale University Library. (n.d.). Selling a lifestyle: Men,Woman and Gender in cigarette advertising. Retrieved from exhibits.library.yale.edu: http://exhibits.library.yale.edu/exhibits/show/sellingsmoke/gender