Tobacco and Public Health - TCSC Indonesia

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CIGARETTE ADVERTISING IN THE UNITED STATES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Inducements to bravery
A third way advertisers can encourage smokers to keep smoking is to help them identify
with being a risk-taker. Without acknowledging the risks of smoking, advertising
creates an image of smoking that encompasses bravery, risk taking, and other positive
images. The best known, and most successful, of these campaigns has been the cowboy
of Philip Morris’ Marlboro ® brand (the world’s best-selling brand).
Marlboro ® advertisements generally have little text, but contain strong imagery.
Marlboro ® print ads often involve obviously dangerous activities, such as bronco-riding
or roping horses. By linking smoking with such activites, smoking is acknowledged
as dangerous, but possessing similar dangers to those encountered by the Marlboro ®
cowboy in his life. These images have been extended to Marlboro ® Lights (1970s) and
Marlboro ® Ultra Lights (1990s). Consider an advertisement for Marlboro ® Lights
(Philip Morris 1976): ‘The spirit of Marlboro in a low tar cigarette’. This text is accompanied
by a painting of the Marlboro ® cowboy riding with horses, seemingly traveling
rather quickly. Marlboro ® Lights and Ultra Lights might be seen as cigarettes for the
cowboy who might be concerned for his health, but not so concerned that he would
give up his exciting life style, or his favorite smoke.
R.J. Reynolds has used similar themes to market Camel ® Filters and Camel ® Lights. In
the late 1970s and early 1980s, male smokers were variously seen sitting around campfires
with mountains in the background (Pollay Collection, Camel 19.13), canoeing
(Pollay Archive, Camel 16.16), whitewater rafting (Pollay Collection, Camel 26.14),
driving Jeeps up mountains (Pollay Collection, Camel 34.15), and arm wrestling (Pollay
Collection, Camel 10.01) (advertisements available in the Richard W. Pollay 20 th
Century Tobacco Advertisement Collection at http://roswell.tobaccodocuments.org/
pollay/dirdet.cfm). Tag lines proclaimed ‘Share a new adventure’ and ‘Where a man
belongs’. During the Joe Camel promotion, Joe was depicted water skiing (Pollay
Collection, Camel 20.14), riding motorcycles (Pollay Collection, Camel 35.15), windsailing
(Pollay Collection, Camel 20.13), and driving race cars (Pollay Collection, Camel
20.19). He was even seen in a bombadier jacket with fighter jets behind him (Pollay
Collection, Camel 27.14). Clearly these images are meant to set the Camel ® smoker
apart as adventurous and masculine—someone willing to take on the risks of smoking.
Consumer perception and types of persuasion
The raison d’être of advertising is to convince consumers to buy and use a particular
product, often by convincing them it is the right thing to do (for an overview, see Jones
1998). People generally want to believe the ‘right’ thing (Cacioppo et al. 1996). That is,
people do not like to be wrong. Advertisements that present messages aimed at persuading
individuals are likely to be consciously processed by consumers. But argument
also invites evaluation. Consumers then have the opportunity to consider what is being