Despite the advertising ban in 1971, advertisements can still be seen on most televised sports events. Tobacco sponsorships of sporting events total about eighty four million dollars a year with billboard advertisements that can be seen on television in almost every sporting event (Bailey 41).
Having advertisements on professional sporting events creates the idea that smoking is associated with being athletic; or if tobacco is used, athletic ability and prowess will follow. None of the advertisements mention that smoking, in fact, hinders athletic ability and causes disabling diseases.
When advertising became a popular means of selling a product, the tobacco industries target audience was women and today it is children. The average age that children start smoking today is twelve. In fact, ninety percent of all adult smokers said that they lit up for the first time as teenagers. The most potent force behind coaxing them into smoking is advertising (Bailey 51).
Statistics show three million children under eighteen smoke in America today. Three thousand teens start smoking each day meaning that one point one million start each year (Trillin 2).
The Term Paper on Effectiveness Of Anti-Smoking Advertisement
Out of the total business of Tobacco in the world (i.e. $ 27 billion a year), 50% amount of the total turnover is being spent on marketing of the products (U.S. FTC _Cigarette Report_ 2007). The total deaths due to smoking were 100 million in the 20th Century. If precautions are not taken, it may go up-to one billion in the 21st Century against the present count of 5.4 million deaths as per WHO ...
To no one’s surprise, teenagers smoke the most heavily advertised cigarette brands. Marlboro, Camel, and Newport are the three top sellers and the three most advertised brands. The most advertised brand is always the most smoked by teens, proving that advertising influences them to smoke a particular brand (Bailey 129).
An extensive study done by professor Richard Pollay also found that when a company’s advertising budget increased, its market share increased only three percent for adults but over nine percent for teenagers (Bailey 131).
But what do these companies advertise- not statistics of the harmful effects smoking creates or the number of deaths related to cigarettes.
Works Cited
Bailey, William E. The Invisible Drug. Houston: Mosaic Publications, 1996.
Breo, Dennis L. “Kicking Butts-AMA, Joe Camel and the “˜Black Flag’ war on tobacco.” The Journal of the American Medical Association. (October 29, 1994)
