A new study in the journal Pediatrics says that the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company may have influenced underage girls to start smoking by effectively marketing a brand of cigarettes to them. (watch video) Cigarette manufacturers aren't supposed to be targeting their ads at young teens - girls or boys. In 1998, the tobacco industry said it wouldn't direct advertising at underage youth. So, what happened here?
The controversial ads were for R.J. Reynold's Camel No. 9 cigarettes. The ads, which were featured in popular women’s magazines like Glamour, Lucky and Vogue back in 2007, look a lot like the pages of a glitzy fashion magazine. The cigarettes are featured right alongside a beautiful dress, shoes, jewelry and a purse - the kinds of items that you might expect teen girls to find glamorous and appealing.
So, putting an ad in Vogue = marketing to children now? Is that what the latest anti-smoking Nazis are claiming? The leaps in logic are par for the course - ZOMG, they feature the cigarettes right next to items that are sleek and glamorous. Imagine that! It's never been done before in the entire history of marketing! Obviously they should have spent their advertising dollars on pictures of ugly people and unappealing things...
Apparently the Pediatrics study is trying to show that Camel is violating the 1998 law prohibiting marketing to children, and has undergone some contortions in logic that, were they physical in nature, would make a yoga instructor blanch. Claiming that marketing in major magazines someone causes underaged teenagers to choose one brand over another is very much like saying that driving fast in an automobile will alter the earth's rotation...
I wonder what they're going to do when they finally destroy the last of the tobacco industry?
That is all.
9 comments:
Soft drinks are next. They're already laying the groundwork and getting the early attacks in.
I wonder what they're going to do when they finally destroy the last of the tobacco industry?
Remember the beginning of Beverly Hills Cop? It'll be a lot like that;)
tweaker
I bet they try alcohol again, too. After all, Prohibition was almost a century ago. Surely we can do a better job of enforcement _now_...
ps: ok, this is frightening, the first time I can recall seeing a real word in the wv slot ... and it's "storm"
Off topic, but my friend Judd (of my 'inbox' posts on my blog) just sent me an email, linking to Les Jones's review of the Remington 1740. Scrolling down, I was not-so-shocked to see that you were the first commentor. Small world.
Lessee...according to this numbskull at CNN, when someone can associate a particular brand with a favorite commercial, said person is more likely to use said brand...
OK...I love the Budwieser Lizards. Hysterical funny. I won't go within 10 feet of that dog-piss that they try to pass off as beer, tho.
My favorite commercial for smokes when I was young? Virginia Slims! Geez...they got the most attractive, perfectly figured gals for those commercials, and as a pre-teen coming into puberty, those actresses were a source of unbridled lust. But I smoked Marlboro's. Slims tasted like bland dirt.
Favorite snack food ad? Jay Leno hawking Dorito's, comparing your orange fingers to nerdy kids that sat at home reading newspapers whilst *their* fingers were covered in black ink residue. But I don't make Dorito's the main course of breakfast, lunch, nor dinner.
CNN are morons, and their *newspersons* are vapid bladders filled with pressurized heated global-warming gasses....
I used to love Marlboro's adverts when I was kid. Tried smoking one once and figured out real quick it wasn't for me, and I hate the smell. I do like the occasional cigar so I guess I must have been brainwashed somewhere along the way.
Well this is the next logical choice now that they have outlawed free will!
Hey dude, show some respect. I mean, it's peer-reviewed.
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