Tobacco Advertisements Can Affect Smokers but not Non-Smokers

Published on July 25, 2008 2:48 AM

Tobacco Companies reported that tobacco advertising doesn’t increase tobacco consumption, and also doesn’t encourage non-smokers to start smoking, as many scientists have said. Instead, tobacco advertising can encourage existing smokers to change or stay with a particular brand.

But anti-tobacco researchers not assent the tobacco companies declarations. They reported that tobacco products are advertised with themes of mass appeal like sexual success and glamour, themes which do not distinguish between smokers and non-smokers.

Tobacco companies also have something of an imperative to attract new customers: since 18,920 Australians die from tobacco caused diseases each year, and around 150,000 more quit smoking permanently each year, it is essential that tobacco companies recruit new smokers in order to survive.

A former president and chairman of the Board of the world's second largest advertising agency have said: "In recent years the cigarette industry has been artfully maintaining that cigarette advertising has nothing to do with total sales. Take my word for it this is complete and utter nonsense. The advertisers know it is nonsense, the industry knows it is nonsense, and I suspect, the public knows it is nonsense. I am always amused by the suggestion that advertising, a function which has been shown to increase consumption with virtually every other product, somehow miraculously fails to work for tobacco products. The industry only advances this argument to try to undermine efforts to restrict tobacco promotion."

If advertising is simply competition between the companies for a larger share of a limited pool of customers, it would logically follow that in countries where a tobacco monopoly exists there would be no need to advertise. This argument has in fact been put forward by one company executive as a reason why bans have been enforced in some countries.

However there are no bans in several other countries where the governments have tobacco marketing monopolies. For example South Korea, Thailand and Turkey, therefore the advertising in these countries could only be intended to expand the markets.

Even the researchers examined data from a number of different countries and concluded that advertising is not a determining factor in uptake of smoking among non-smokers.