Tobacco Companies Using Advertising Tactics That Target Teenagers

Tobacco ads have stood out to me from a young age, I was used to seeing cigarette ads in every magazine and street corner. When I was 11 I joined a tobacco advocacy group, I wanted to inform young people my age about the dangers of tobacco but mostly I joined because they paid me. I found these two ads and I remembered sitting in an empty classroom analyzing tobacco ads and discussing how they appeal to us. I found two ads, both from the most recent issue of a popular celebrity gossip magazine. The first major difference one notices is that of the ads is catered to a completely different audience. Blu E-cigarettes cater to the new age of tobacco consumers. While Newport menthol cigarettes are tried and tested, a classic. The major differences in this ad make it difficult to pick which one is most effective at getting more buyers of their product. Newport’s ad is

Although tobacco advertisements are banned, people still consume it. The ban started in 1971 and since then has become even more strict on the sponsoring and promotion of tobacco brand logos. Now, all tobacco ads used, dissuade users from consuming. Advertisements in general can be obnoxious and tiresome, but they are sometimes necessary for the seller to get their point across. Ads are either trying to get money from the consumer or driving to change a person’s mind positively. The main reasoning for the creation of advertisements is to persuade the viewer or audience through the evocation of ethos, pathos, and logos, to have a change of mind about the product. The ads I chose are both similar, but have different goals towards their audience.

Because of the alluring advertising to high school teens from TV and friends, over “23 percent of high school students have used a form of tobacco in the past month, selecting from flavored cigars, electronic cigarettes, and other products” (“Teen Smoking”). Because Vaping Companies, such as JUUL and PHIX, are advertised to teens saying the device is smart and satisfying, high school students underestimate the long term effects of e-cigarettes and tobacco. The number of students who use an e-cigarette every month has exponentially increased because the companies do not address the health effects, but rather, the companies only goal is to increase revenue for themselves. In 2015, vaping companies, gas stations, and grocery stores made an estimated total of “3.3 billion dollars” on vaping devices (“U.S. Vapor Market”). This number, which has continued to increase, is largely formed by teen E-Cigarette users. Although this income number would increase if these machines were legalized for minors, companies would most likely use this money for more advertising, attracting even more high school

According to the CDC, in 2012 cigarette and smokeless tobacco companies spent more than $9.6 billion on advertising and promotional expenses in the United States alone. This is an extremely atrocious amount of money to spend on a product that has been proven to harm or even kill its consumers. In addition, the world lung

In our communities, the youth can easily identified any of tobacco’s product. The author, Steven Reinberg, published , Tobacco Companies Targeting Teens, Study Says, states that the tobacco product, Marlboro, is highly purchased by high school students according to usnews.com. Mr. McGoldrick states that the three brands, 90 percent is being marketed. Most companies hold their ground saying that their tobacco products are not meant to bought by youth, but somehow still managed to in our children’s hands, in his article, Tobacco Companies Targeting Teens, Study Says (steven Reinberg). According to Erin Brodwin, author of “Tobacco Companies Still Target Youth despite A Globally Treaty”, states that children all over the world can identify the tobacco brands. Not only are children picking up their ideas from television, but also from public. Children knowing which brands shows how serious the addiction can be. Seeing how easily the product being shown to the youth is another way of starting. If less smokers are seen in public, the lower the numbers will

The single most important issue is promotion and advertising. In 2012 the tobacco industry spent 26 million dollars a day in marketing and advertising alone (Federal Trade Commission Cigarette Report). Tobacco companies exploit the vulnerability of teenagers. Through their advertising, tobacco companies create a image about their consumers. As is the case with all advertising, a substantial

Advertisements are a vital part of any company’s marketing strategy, and are used to inform or persuade an audience about a certain product or service. In fact, North American companies are among the world’s highest advertisers (Boone et al., 2010, 502). Today, an average consumer is exposed to hundreds of advertisements every day. It is when these companies attempt to promote a dangerous product that restrictions must be, and have been put in place. For several years, Canada’s regulations on tobacco advertisements have become stricter, while

According to ScienceDaily, Anti-Smoking campaigns aimed towards kids are most effective when convincing youth that their friends are listening to the ads (1) . While outdated and ineffective ads focus on telling individuals to avoid tobacco or die horribly, Hye-Jin Paek, assistant professor at UGA College of Journalism and Mass Communication, says new advertisements across the world focus on changing the social norms surrounded by smoking. Instead of an ad saying “every cigarette you smoke takes nine minutes off your life,” these billboards could read “over 66% of Kentucky's high school students are smoke free.” This is a great example of a shifting focus from health risks associated with tobacco to how a young adult's peers feel about tobacco. A social standard is set for high school students when ads clearly state that the vast majority of teens aren't smoking.

In the United States today, more than forty six million Americans are addicted to cigarettes. More people have died due to cigarette smoking than from narcotic drugs, World Wars I and II, and the Vietnam War combined (Bailey 1). The annual death toll for cigarette smoking is more than four-hundred thousand Americans a year, and is the number-one preventable cause of death in the United States. If Americans are aware of the lethal effects of smoking, why is it still so popular? Guy Smith, a Phillip Morris Tobacco Company executive, claims that their research shows that advertising is the top reason people start smoking (Bailey 34). Most people will argue that this is not true because the do not like to be “sold” and

The authors point out how anti-smoking advertisements do not send a clear message to the students to understand how smoking can impact their health. It seems that the advertisements trick people by sending the wrong message, such as demonstrating that smoking is not as bad as it seems that the more the students see those advertisements, the more propense for the students to smoke. The source is relevant to my hypothesis because it demonstrates that teenagers are unaware of the health consequences that they can get. The author’s goal is for teenagers to understand anti-smoking messages are not explicit and are not demonstrating a clear understanding of the risks that smoking cause. The authors conclude that new advertisements need to be more carefully evaluated for teenagers to recognize that their intentions reflect undesirable outcome in the antismoking advertainments for teenagers to understand smoking and the inevitable result that can be provoked due to smoking.

Advertising for tobacco is another source that cause teenagers smoke and adults smoke. Recently, tobacco companies have found new ways to promote their products to youth. They support their sporting events, concerts and movie. Many people favor idols or stars smoke in the movies and they seems very cool. And Teenagers are curious about imitation. Smoke containing nicotine acts as a stimulant to the brain. Nicotine in the bloodstream acts to make the smoker feel calm. In fact, nicotine is a lethal poison, affecting the heart, blood vessels, and hormones. Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemical compounds. More than 60 of these are known or suspected to cause cancer. What is more, secondhand smoke can be harmful in many ways and it ruins thousands of non-smoking people, children's health. The US Surgeon General and the US Food and Drug Administration are among those who have examined the evidence and concluded that tobacco advertising does increase overall consumption. If we ban adverts on tobacco products, they will gradually lose their appeal, because they won't symbolize anything "cool", "smart" or "amazing". Tobacco products will become ordinary consumption goods and thus the number of young people who take up smoking in order to "be somebody" will decrease.

To make matters worse, the tobacco companies are making millions from teen smokers. Tobacco companies use advertising to manipulate both teens and adults. They present images that are hard to shake, even when you know the truth. Have you ever seen a cigarette ad where people are wrinkled, middle-aged or coughing and in the hospital dying of lung cancer? Of course not! In most ads, smokers are shown the way that teens would like to be: attractive and hip, sophisticated and elegant, or rebellious.

Though tobacco advertising has been monitered in the media, it still directly a cause for youth today to begin smoking and using tobacco products. The history of media's glorification of smoking is something of which cannot be erased and it is something impossible to shelter children from. Children's minds are easily manipulated and with smoking still shown in movies, its simple to influence their decisions and give off the wrong impressions on smoking. Stores even place ads for cigarettes at a level where young children cannot see them but that doesn't stop them from vieweing ads on televisions, magazines, or again from movies they are allowed to watch. Tobacco companies pay movie industries and directors to have their products shown in a movie which as a result both companies would recieve a lump amount of money for product endourcing.(Stanton ) It's easy for movie producers to agree to this because they'd end up with a lot of money just to simply have a box of cigaettes with the logo showing on table which seems harmless but it's not.

b. Sub-point B: Another cause, can also be influenced by social media, newspaper, and TV.Jeff Carpenter wrote on ABC News article,on November 1st, 2001, he states “the tobacco industry has altered its advertising, ads still lure teens into buying tobacco products”. Advertisements would target viewers to earn more money. Tobacco companies stopped outdoor billboards, but have taken these advertising dollars and put them into local convenience stores.

This problem of creating a trendy stylish image of cigarettes are hurting many people by recruiting new young smokers from all around the world, winning over sales due to the false image and then addiction. Third world countries are hurt the most by this unethical way of advertising because they don’t have money for this extra expense that they now need due to addiction. Critics claim that sophisticated promotions in a unsophisticated societies entice people who cannot afford the necessities of life to spend money on luxury- and a dangerous one at that. Every cigarette manufacturer is in the image business, and tobacco companies say their promotional slant is both reasonable and common. They point out that in the Third World a lot of people cannot understand what is written in the ads anyway, so the ads zero in on the more understandable visual image. Due to actions such as this and the negative effect it has on people economically and physically, this is a good example of how the tobacco industry is unethical.