Tobacco Advertising

The word "advertise" means "to tell about or praise with the purpose of  selling a product or service." This is important to the economic concept of  distribution of wealth. When you see a product being praised by advertising,  you may want to ask yourself some questions about what you think or know about  the product. You might ask, "Is this the truth? Why do they want me to believe  what they are telling me? If I buy this product, is the money I give worth  what I get in return?"

Since tobacco does not smell very good and costs money, tobacco companies had  to find a way to create a need for their product. Tobacco advertising has a  long and creative history. In the early 1900's, only 1% of the U.S. population  smoked. Cancer and heart disease were very rare. By the 1950's almost 50% of  the U.S. adult population smoked. The increase in smoking had a lot to do with  the different ways tobacco companies found to advertise their products. Today  heart disease and cancer caused by smoking rank as two of the top diseases  that cause death in America.

Early in the 1900's, American Tobacco, owned by Washington Duke (a non-  smoker), manufactured 90% of the cigarettes in the U.S. American Tobacco  advertised their cigarettes by making baseball cards that featured pictures of  famous singers and baseball players. A baseball player named Honus Wagner  asked that all his cards be destroyed because they promoted smoking and he did  not like his face being used to sell tobacco to kids.

By the 1940's and 1950's tobacco companies were using all forms of  media–radio, magazines, newspapers, motion pictures and television–to promote  smoking. They even advertised in medical journals and ran public ads in which  doctors endorsed smoking as "good for your health." In Hollywood, tobacco  companies sponsored popular television shows, like "I Love Lucy" and portrayed  the main characters to be regular smokers. Today, movie stars smoke in films;  musicians smoke in MTV videos and actors smoke on television. We see people  smoking in every medium of popular culture, which makes smoking socially  acceptable and creates peer pressure to smoke.

Targeting Young People

Although 2% (2 out of every 100) of smokers are teenagers, the tobacco  companies spend 50% of their advertising money targeting young people to  smoke. The tobacco companies spend over $6,000,000,000 ($6 billion) a year in  advertising. Why do you think companies spend this much trying to get young  people to smoke?

The California Department of Health surveyed 5,773 stores around the state and  found the following: most tobacco promotions were placed within 1,000 feet of  a school; many displays in stores were placed 3 feet high and near the candy  display, and many more outdoor signs were located near schools than in other  places. The companies have claimed for years that they were only targeting  people 18 to 34 with advertising, but what does the evidence show you?

Camel cigarette advertising is an example of how tobacco companies target  young people. Camels used to be the unfiltered cigarettes that were smoked by  older smokers. Once this older generation died, Camel lost sales. Camel then  came up with an advertising strategy to target younger smokers--the Joe Camel  campaign. The campaign showed Joe Camel in fun, exciting places doing "cool"  and "rebellious" things. Before the character of Joe Camel was created, Camel  cigarettes were smoked by only 1% of the youth market. Three years after he  was created, Camel sales for adults rose 5% but Camel sales for youth rose  from 1% to 34%. And one recent study of young toddlers found that more of the  children recognized Joe Camel than Mickey Mouse.

(More information on tobacco advertising can be found in the student workbook.)