Answer to Question #196405 in Management for kavita

Question

Examine the advertising for cigarettes over time. Spend some time researching how advertising for cigarettes has changed over the past 50 years. Look at old ads from the 1950s and 1960s and compare them with modern ads. How has the message changed? During which time frame do you believe the advertising to be the most effective? Why?

Answer 1

Advertising of cigarettes has greatly evolved over the past 50 years.

Cigarette ads have increasingly become more detailed and marketing other products such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products. Also, cigarette ads were predominantly carried out on radio and television. Modern marketing is more aggressive, with ads being marketed through mass media, social media, stealth marketing and sponsorship, mostly sporting events.

There was less regulatory control on cigarette advertising in the 1950s than currently. Most tobacco adverts were legal before the 1970s. Regulations around advertising have increased legal strains on misguiding cigarette ads.

cigarette ads greatly avoided the topic of addictiveness of nicotine in their marketing up to the late 20th century. This was because tobacco companies feared exposure to legal and social liabilities.

Ads before the 70s have marketed cigarettes with somewhat false advertising implications including explicit messages of nicotine products being healthy, safe and harmless e.g. the "Play safe with Philip Morris" ad. Regulatory action and increased legal risks has led to an end of explicit marketing messages. For instance, in 1964, advertising restrictions were placed on tobacco products forcing tobacco companies to place warning labels on the effects of nicotine, forcing cigarette ads to be more subtle. Disinformative messages such as cigarettes being healthy have become more indirect and implicit in modern ads. Also, modern ads contain explicit claims of the health harms of the product if overused.

Increased legal restrictions, medical and nonmedical reviews as well as increased lobbying for banning of cigarette ads in the 20th century has led to less aggression in cigarette ads.