Cigarette Advertising in Modern Society Essay

Do you ever watch the Super Bowl for its commercials? Have you ever bought a more expensive product because you had seen its advertisement? If the answer is yes, then you might have been a victim of today’s marketers. Jean Kilbourne, the author of “Killing us Softly” stated in one of her lectures, “The influence of advertising is quick, cumulative and for the most part, subconscious, ads sell more products.” “Advertising has become much more widespread, powerful, and sophisticated.” According to Jean Kilbourne, “babies at six months can recognize corporate logos, and that is the age at which marketers are now starting to target our children.” Jean Kilbourne is a woman who grew up in the 1950s and worked in the media field in the 1960s. This paper will explain the methods used by marketers in today’s advertising. An advertisement contains one or more elements of aesthetics, humor, and sexual nature.

Did you know that almost every one person out of seven smokes cigarettes on Earth? It is one of the top cause of death, yet, five million people die each year. Anti- smoking advertisements usually comes up very often, when you are watching TV, on social media, even on top of the cigarette packs. The advertisement that I choosed to do my rhetorical analysis is black and white picture, showing young woman smoking a cigarette and the smoke is forming like rope around the lady’s neck where it is about to choke the lady. The advertisement is using the two rhetorical claim of logos and pathos through this picture. Through this advertisement, the image shows us how deadly it is to smoke cigarettes.

The roaring twenties was a time of great prosperity and rapid change, as well as a celebration of new technologies. These changes have had a significant impact in transforming the United States into a consumerist society. The philosophies and foundations of advertising strategies created in the 1920s can still be found on occasion in today’s contemporary advertisements and sometimes can work in tandem to strengthen their sales pitch. The 1920s were a time of booming domestic consumerism to the extent that “even products rarely purchased as separate units began to seek a place in consumer conscience” (Marchand, 5). Marchand goes on to say that as result of the changes in marketing strategies, advertising expenditures “rose from 8 percent in 1914 to 14 percent in 1929” (6). Marchand states that advertising is such a crucial part of our life, that one of the first statements he makes in his book is that through advertisements a “...picture of our time (day-by-day) is recorded completely and vividly” (xv). Two popular advertising strategies that came out of the twenties were the Democracy of Goods and the parable of First Impression, both of which tended to work with one another when marketing goods targeted for middle class consumers. The print advertisement for Mercedes-Benz resembles advertising strategies from the 1920s by

While it is undeniable that advertising has invaded a number of segments in our lives, it is equally undeniable that the manner in which advertisers have tried to connect with viewers is highly variable and dependent on the presiding values of the culture in the specific time period, which the ad was released. Ads can either try to suggest that a specific product cultivates these desirable values or on the other hand they can attempt to suggest that people that already have these values will use these products. Throughout the course of this paper, three ads from three time periods; 1935-1940: Great Depression, 1941-1945: World War II, 1946-1960: Postwar, and their subsequent dominating historical events will be examined to determine how the

Today in American society the social normality of smoking cigarettes is in a rapid decline. It seems with each passing year there are increasing numbers of legislation restricting where people can place advertisement and where smoking is even permitted. Smoking cigarettes for many years was a focal point in American culture projecting the image of this prosperous social status obtainable for everyone. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the creators of the “Newport Pleasure!” Advertisement heavily takes this progressive movement into consideration when creating the illusion that smoking is socially accepted. The R.J Reynolds Tobacco Company’s advertising campaign connects the use of logos and pathos extremely and effectively displaying their message. In order to recreate the social normality of smoking advertisers select a wide range of healthy-socially-active youth, place a campaign slogan that their consumers are unable to miss, and heavily doctor the focal elements of this advertisement.

It seem this man is living a surreal world full of bliss and happiness. His long smooth sideburns, small golden sunglasses tinted with a fresh color of purple, and attention-grabbing starred blue suede shirt with the leather pullover are a representation of the careless attitude the majority of people had during that time period. Then, what the ad does is bring attention to the digital telephone the man is wearing. The ad mixes the old, the retro Afro, with the new, a video telephone, to show that Camel cigarettes are an older respectable company that is still evolving and stylish. The man may look as if he is living in the seventies, but he is fashionable enough to be with all the new technology that is coming out today. Moreover, it is visible that the man is smoking a cigarette on which appears the old popular icon of Joe Camel on the cigarette. Also, placed in the bottom right corner of the ad is the picture of the signature camel and the words "since 1913" showing the audience that this company has been around for a while and is respectable.

While researching information for the group assignment our group found that over the year’s cigarette ads have changed tremendously. Diego decided to study ads created in the 1960’s where ads were targeted at every marketing group possible. The ads were promoted as something everyone was doing. Even the Flintstone cartoon characters were used in cigarette commercials. Companies promoted cigarettes as a product that not only has a great tobacco taste, but is also quiet refreshing and soothing. Most ads during this time period involved couples where the leading man attracted the women with his cool refreshment of the cigarette. Other ads tried to persuade smokers to get rid of the old items that are not working out so great such as their choice of cigarettes, and switch over to their “Kool” cigarettes. Every company tried convince consumers that their cigarettes were better than the

Today’s quick-moving world of technology has media texts such as advertisements to make sure that people understand with just a glance. Having adverts on magazines, social media and billboards allow them to use tools such as semiology, genre and narrative because it makes their messages clear instantly. These signs allow us to carry meaning through advertisements, connotations and the signification process. These tools let brands, mainly celebrities, and the option to produce and create a myth of the product such as “Be daring. Be an inspiration” to sell it to the world. We are in a time where advertisers use ‘simplicity’ in their adverts; there are no more paragraphs. It is mainly down to the person and the few words shown in that advert.

Weasel  words  means  using  words  to  suggest  a  positive  meaning.  Just  because  you smoke does

Tobacco ads have been barred from television for over twenty years. Young children don’t need the influence to smoke or dip, considering they’ll have enough peer pressure to do so later in life. By essentially censoring television ads, the government decreases the advertising power of tobacco companies. However, there are simply some things that should not be censored. When censored, any sort of art loses its meaning. When the government tries to censor art, such as music, paintings, digital art, movies, or TV shows, people can no longer truly express their feelings or convey the message they were attempting to portray.

to get them hooked. Many smokers drop the habit each year by either quitting or dying (How

Having explored Dutton’s theory through the lens of primitive art, I now extrapolate his philosophical viewpoint to modern advertising (a somewhat risky exercise, albeit one with many benefits). With this extrapolation, I can hypothesize that society treats advertisements that “further” the field much more reverently than they do advertisements that simply utilize old ideals. Simple observation reveals that this hypothesis may not be far off the mark. Creative Super Bowl ads, for instance, often garner much attention, with particularly innovative ads having the potential to redefine a company’s image. (While not a static magazine ad or billboard image, Apple’s famed 1984 “Big Brother” ad provides an example of such a commercial.) Yet even though

Advertisements, in the twenty-first century, are an ever-present medium of influence in our day-to-day lives. This notoriously ubiquitous form of publicity has become so intricately woven into our cultural and societal presence that we have learned to absorb the messages put forth by advertisements, often without any question as to their credibility. Advertisers position readers to accept the messages being conveyed, and in doing so, attain an unsettling degree of power over their readers, with the ability to exploit feelings, emotions and desires through the use of clever discourses, images and symbols. In order to undermine the influence and pervasive nature of advertising,

An advertisement is a company’s way of speaking to the current generation of people whom they are focused on. Understanding how people of a certain time advertised gives a much deeper look into their culture. Every detail in an ad is thought through by people who think they know the best way to sell their product or idea. These people wonder about shading and how much text to add and how to get the message across without writing a book. Knowing why a company puts a big bear on an ad tells about the focus of the company’s advertising campaign. Products advertised in the 1930’s would more than likely not sell in modern day places, just as modern advertisements might puzzle someone from the 1930’s. The fact is that advertisements are not aimed toward a product, they are aimed toward the buyer. This is the significates of this project, to prove that the advertisements from a well-known company are focused on the person who should purchase the product not the product itself. Advertisements may display the products but they have to have the viewer’s attention to sell their

The aim of the final assignment is to analyze the issue of cigarette advertising from the ethical point of view. The evidence examined basically tells about the unsuccessful restrictions of cigarette advertising. Relevant theories are applied, such as Consequentialism and Elaboration Likelihood model to make a more explicit research of the topic. The analysis part combines theory, cases, author’s opinion and values and tries to provide an objective viewpoint from two perspectives: advertising and users/non-users of cigarettes, and advertising and producers/distributors and cigarettes.