Tobacco Ads Effect on Smoking 

At one point in our history with tobacco ads for cigarettes were everywhere that you turned. Commercials billboards, magazine ads and sponsorship for cigarettes was abundant in society.  For may of us it was a prevalent part of the culture we grew up in. All that has changed since the government passed down harsher laws relating tot he marketing of tobacco products. Now instead of turning on the TV and seeing a cowboy lighting up on his ride, we see anti smoking campaigns depicting the horrors of smoking.

Tobacco Ads

The tobacco industry is a huge money maker and the tobacco companies spend billions of dollars annually to ensure that is stays that way. Cigarette manufacturers realize that because there business kills its consumers, those consumers need to be replaced with new consumers to keep their company afloat. Cigarette ads use youthful, sexy, fun images to target young people and get their product noticed. Tobacco companies can no longer advertise on television, so often their primary focus is on print ads in magazines. Sadly the majority of the magazines that they chose to advertise in our magazines with a primarily young audience that is encouraging teenage smoking. They project the smokers in the ad as being cool, happy and attractive and even though we like to think that these tactics don't work, studies show that the three brands that spend the most in advertising are the three most commonly smoked brands. Ads are placed in magazines that relate to music, sports, pop culture and cars because cigarette advertisers know that these magazines are primarily read by teenagers. This ensures those companies are creating new life long customers. It is a dirty business, but if they didn't market theirs ads with these concepts in mind their business would eventually fold.

Many tobacco companies also use incentive programs to advertise their products. They encourage smokers to smoke more by collecting the UPC labels on the side of their cigarette packages and turn them in for merchandise. People save up and collect the labels until they have enough for a duffle bag, clothing or even another carton of cigarettes. Often this merchandise is labeled with the cigarette brand logo, which is another form of advertising in itself.

Anti Smoking Ads

Now that big tobacco can no longer advertise on TV it has left room for a new breed of smoking related ads. The anti smoking movement has begun to wage war on big tobacco and they target the youth audience as well. Popular youth television networks are inundated with creative and interesting ads that grab the attention of viewers and encourage people to stop smoking. These organizations use straight facts and out right mockery to make the tobacco companies look sinister for their practices. Whether they are laying down by the thousand in the middle of a city street to prove a point about the deaths caused by smoking. Or using an extreme analogy to prove that smoking is deadly, these new smoking ads are surely getting noticed.