One of the stranger things to come out of the lawsuits against Big Tobacco was the need for companies like RJR, etc. to fund advertising convincing children not to smoke. This has long fascinated me since obviously the companies have little desire for this advertising to be particularly successful.
So the advertisements you do see, to my mind, seem to be as unattractive as possible and deliberately trying to avoid their target audience despite being in the right location. For example, in a recent copy of the annoying magazine FHM, there is a typical full page colour ad for Camel cigarettes showing guys being stewed in a pot by half-naked, attractive cannibal women. The Surgeon general warning is discreetly placed in the upper right corner, while much bigger and eye-catching “artificial” warnings against man-hungry women, tasty stew, etc. are placed in the more attractive lower right corner. The message is clear: the warnings are a joke and shouldn’t be taken seriously. On the back cover of the issue is a verbose, entirely text artical telling kids why they should not smoke, written at a college level of vocabulary, using lots of ten-dollar words, crappy colours, and the word “NO” outlined in such a jagged bubble that it is actually hard to read.
So to cut to the chase, my questions:
Are they other examples of big tobacco producing advertising seemingly drawn from the top 10 lists of things to avoid in a serious ads (i.e. is there evidence supporting the view the ads seemingly are made to be as ineffective as possible while following the letter of the law)
How are such ads designed and paid for? Is this in need of any reform, or do the companies have the right to design ineffective ads? Are they other examples of companies deliberately producing shoddy (intentionally ineeffective) advertising?
I can’t answer your question, but I must say that every anti-smoking commercial I’ve seen sucks. Very badly.
I’ve visited the messageboards at thetruth.com and I estimate that 90% of the posts there are from teenage smokers telling thetruth.com to f-off (some more politely than others). I certainly don’t see the ads as being effective at all.
I don’t exactly know what you mean by the Camel ads…their recent trend has been to make all their ads outlandish and comical, at least the ones I’ve seen.
I find the whole thing interesting because they’ve got to be the first industry to ever be forced to advertise against itself.
I always thought the Surgeon General’s Warning was clear enough, but then again I’m literate. Who knows?
That is sad, I never knew this thing was sinking so quickly. I just visited and the message boards have been taken down complete due to lack of positive posts. Now they are polling people who go there wether or not to have the message boards at all.
The smoking ads were a teeney tiny part of me quiting.
The ads didn’t motivate me, but when they came on with my fiance in the room(ardent non-smoker), things always got very tense.
Three ads that I was impressed with after I stopped smoking:
The one where they have a kid holding a “national debt” type counter. It is clicking away real fast and is counting people who die from lung cancer each year.
There is a billboard in NJ where they have a graveyard superimposed with some sort of message. I can’t remember the words, but the message was clear enough…
The other one was focusing on how you were just literally burning your money.
I hate the tobacco settlement, I hate the tobacco lawsuits, but I do think they have a real ad campaign going.
The ad I found particularly humorous was one blasting the tobacco industry for targeting children. How horrible, trying to persuade vulnerable children to agree with your message … er, wait, isn’t that what the antismoking commercial itself was doing?
Well, some people might see a difference between trying to convince young children to undertake a costly, life-shortening, and addictive habit, and trying to convince young children not to undertake a costly, life-shortening, and addictive habit.
The ad harped on the fact that they were targeting innocent kids, and made it sound as if targeting kids was in and of itself a horrible thing to do. That’s what I find ironic. The ad attacked the tobacco industry’s tactic as bad, not the product.
And lots of commercials still try to convince young children to undertake a costly, life-shortening, and addictive habit, but you don’t see people running anti-candybar ads, do you?
Candy bars are not addictive; nicotine is. And yes, I do think it’s wrong for the tobacco companies to target children, especially when they’ve agreed not to do so, and then do all they can to circumvent their own agreements.
Quote:
During the last several decades the scientific literature has pointed to chocolate for its alleged role in many body maladies. They have discovered that chocolate can cause migraines, acne, obesity, dental cavities, heartburn, rectal itching, and coronary problems. And a new study implicates two chemicals in chocolate - theobromine and caffeine - as villains in a disorder known as fibrocystic breast disease. This benign ailment is characterized by fibrous tissue and cyst fluid in the breasts. Chocolate also contains methylxanthines which accelerate chemical activity involved in the body’s cellular metabolism and can cause certain sensitive tissues to proliferate. WOMEN WITH FIBROCYSTIC BREAST DISEASE ARE FOUR TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DEVELOP BREAST CANCER AS NORMAL WOMEN.
Chocolate also is loaded with another chemical, phenylethylamine, a compound related to amphetamine. This can lead to emotional problems such as feelings of anger, irritability and confusion, depression, hyperactivity, hallucinations, and even violent behavior. Dr. Marshall Mandell, in his book “5-Day Allergy Relief System”, noted that milk chocolate caused impaired memory and deteriorated penmanship as well as mental confusion for a nine-year-old boy.
Frequent consumption of chocolate leads to addiction, and many people are allergic to chocolate and don’t realize the symptoms they have are caused by it. Psychiatrists have pointed out that people resort to chocolate binges when they are depressed.
Chocolate is very high in sugar and some sugar junkies need a fix every three to four hours. Most candy bars contain at least 45% sugar, and the rest is fat. A mere ounce of the stuff contains 151 calories. If you reach for a handful of almonds that aren’t mired in the gooey confection, the calorie count is only 60. And a few slices of apples contain only 65 calories.
Endquote
Seen any beer adds lately showing winos living on the street? Or children who have had the shit beaten out of them by a drunken parent? Christ knows I’d like to sue over the ten years I threw down the toilet. Unfortunately, all those free beers handed out in “College Bars” (yeah, like I was really college age at the time) don’t qualify as “targeting children”.
By the way, seen any adds lately that suggest that driving in an irresponsible and dangerous manner is fun? No problem, I recently saw a “Truth” add that assures me that cars are safe. So parents, if your kids want to play on the highway - nothing to worry about!
And another thing, what the hell is “Big Tobacco”? How does it compare to “Big Alcohol” or “Big Lawyers” or “Big Medicine”? And yes, I’m biased as hell; but are you any better?
Hi there, Zig. “Big Medicine” checking in to refute your comment above (actually, I like to think of myself as a small mindless cog in the machinery of the Medical Juggernaut).
Women with ordinary, garden variety fibrocystic changes (you can hardly call it a “disease” when it is such an overwhelmingly prevalent finding in older women) don’t have a significantly increased risk of breast cancer. The risk climbs somewhat for “proliferative” forms of fibrocystic change (about a 2x risk) and is higher again with atypical ductal hyperplasia. The presence of fibrocystic change may make it harder to detect the development of cancer. Reducing caffeine (from chocolate and other sources) may relieve symptomatic fibrocystic changes, but it’s way too far a jump to say that chocolate causes breast cancer.
Regarding the OP, if you believe that the tobacco companies are dropping the ball on anti-smoking messages, what about the booze makers running ads emphasizing how wonderful life is when you’re drinking, then sticking on little tag lines like “Brand X urges you to drink responsibly”? Think that’s effective?
The Fed is limited in what it’s willing to do to stop smoking. It’s addicted to the tobacco tax revenues. If you want more powerful anti-smoking ads, try shooting public service spots in the V.A. hospitals showing patients before and after they’ve had laryngectomies and lungs removed. Or some guy wheezing, on oxygen, with a butt in his hand.
One actual favorite showing the glamor of smoking featured some grubby, balding old N.Y. cabdriver-type saying “By me, it’s Camels”.
Hell Jack, I would’nt know a fibrocystic breast disease from a Smith & Wessen!! But I suspect you, at least; got my point. I have nothing against “Big Medicine” (that’s actually a lie, why the hell do I need a prescription for the only athelete’s foot medicine in the world that actually works); I just get tired of double standards. And I get a little scared of double standards when they are openly and officially espoused by “Big Government”.
For the record: It is not my quote; just something I turned up on a google search for phenylethylamine, which I understand to be the most likely addictive substance in chocolate (along with theobromine).
I agree that the hypocrisy is certainly not limited to cigarette ads. Well I do not like the tobacco industry in general, I do not think they should be forced to fund anti-smoking advertising.
Chocolate does not lead, surprisingly, to increased acne. The relative risk of fibrocystic breast disease, IIRC, is about 1.5, certainly much less than 4.
I also, as my secret shame, enjoy the occasional cigar. AFAIK, these have not been shown to incease mortality on insurance tables when enjoyed occasionally. Nevertheless, they likely have many of the same disadvantages.
I’m more interested in the advertising itself i this thread. Tobacco has already been vilified before here, I’m sure.
