Tobacco and Public Health - TCSC Indonesia

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CIGARETTE ADVERTISING IN THE UNITED STATES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
The risks of smoking were known
Many smokers at that time were likely to have been aware of health concerns about
tobacco. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Anti-Cigarette League, under the direction
of Lucy Page Gaston, helped spread the word about the dangers of cigarettes (Tate
1999). States had even placed bans on cigarettes. See Tate (1999) for a detailed account
of anti-smoking activities, many directed specifically at the dangers to health of cigarette
smoking (cf. Robert 1967). There were also widespread concerns in the newspapers
about possible impurities, adulterants, and dirty conditions involved in
cigarette making (see Young 1917).
President Ulysses S. Grant died a very public death due to throat cancer, and
Patterson (1989) has argued that this death of a famous cigar smoker contributed
greatly to fear of tobacco-caused cancer in the United States around the turn of the
century. A prevailing theory of cancer during the early twentieth century held that cancers
were caused by ‘irritation’ (Patterson 1989). This model proposed that excessive
use of tobacco irritated the linings of the throat and mouth, eventually leading to cancerous
growths. (‘Moderate’ tobacco use was viewed as not especially dangerous, even
if definitions of moderate and excessive were far from clear—see Young 1917). At this
time, cigarettes were a small fraction of the market, and excessive pipe and cigar use
were implicated in oral cancers; lung cancer was virtually unheard of at the time
(Patterson 1989). Since cigarettes were so mild they could be inhaled, they could be
positioned as the obviously safer form of tobacco use (Kozlowski 1982).
During the first few decades of the twentieth century, few laws or guidelines impeded
the marketing of cigarettes or the claims that could be made about them. Manufacturers
were free to say just about anything they wanted. Once restrictions were enacted, manufacturers
could not directly claim safety or healthfulness of their products. Therefore, they
had to use alternative routes (within the bounds of the restrictions) to convince customers
that smoking was less dangerous than critics claimed. The claims made by manufacturers
about cigarettes might be seen both as what was most advantageous for manufacturers to
say, and what consumers most desired to hear: cigarettes are safe, and you can continue to
smoke. Over the years, the messages have been varied; reassurance, misdirection of attention,
and inducements to be brave in the face of fear are three themes that recur repeatedly.
Reassurance
This theme attacks the health issue straight on, offering ways to smoke ‘safely’. Various technical
‘innovations’ over the years have been advertised as ‘health protection’. Reassurance
marketing began early—consider the text of a 1932 advertisement for Lucky Strike ® :
Do you inhale?
What’s there to be afraid of? 7 out of 10 inhale knowingly the other 3 do so unknowingly.
Do you inhale? Lucky Strike meets the vital issue fairly and squarely … for it has solved the vital