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11 Advertising
- NYU Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Advertising Imagine an advertising campaign in which flyers advertising cigarettes are passed out to children leaving Cub Scout or Brownie meetings . Given the illegality of sales of cigarettes or alcohol to children, the campaign seems almost unimaginable. But clearly ad campaigns for such products, while said to be aimed at adults, have an effect on children, and it seems hard to believe that they were not intended to have that impact. In 1988, R. J. Reynolds changed its image and advertising campaign by introducing a more appealing version of its camel symbol. The camel that had long appeared on cigarette packs standing in front of pyramids became, in Camel’s ads, Joe Camel. The Food and Drug Administration described Joe Camel as a “more hip . . . spokescamel,” depicted as “a humorous figure in history, as an advisor to young adults with ‘smooth moves’ and eventually as one of a gang of hip camels (‘the hard pack’ band and the gang at the watering hole bar).”1 Prior to the introduction of Joe Camel, Camel cigarettes sales constituted less than 3 percent of the national market for those under eighteen. Within a year, Camel’s share of that market had increased to 8.1 percent, and within four years it had grown to between 13 and 16 percent of the youth market.2 The ad campaign even developed brand awareness in young children. A study published in 1991 found that 30 percent of three-year-olds and 91 percent of six-year-olds recognized Joe Camel as a symbol for smoking, a recognition rate higher than that of Ronald McDonald.3 Of course, Joe Camel and other characters, such as the Budweiser frogs or the macho figure of the old Marlboro Man, do not appeal only to those too young to smoke or drink legally. Tobacco and alcohol companies can claim to be attempting to attract the younger end of the legal markets, even if an incidental effect on the youth market accompanies those attempts. Nonetheless, the FDA examined tobacco industry documents that indicated that the companies had done extensive research on 11 213 the smoking behavior and attitudes of the young and how to make advertisements appeal to youth, including children as young as fourteen.4 The likelihood that these ads were directed toward those too young to smoke is increased by the results of studies of smoking habits. Again according to the FDA, if a person does not begin to smoke before the age of eighteen, he or she is unlikely ever to begin, with 82 percent of all adults who have ever smoked having begun prior to eighteen, half of them already having become heavy smokers by that age.5 Furthermore, research indicates that brand loyalty is particularly strong among smokers, with most smokers continuing to smoke the brand they smoked at the time they became regular smokers.6 Given this brand loyalty and the fact that smokers become regular smokers while they are minors, it is hard to believe that the industry’s advertising efforts are directed solely toward adults. As one last bit of evidence regarding the target, and certainly strong evidence of the effect of cigarette advertising, research shows that children smoke the brands that are advertised. Eighty-six percent of those under eighteen who purchase cigarettes bought Marlboro, Camel or Newport, the three most heavily advertised brands at the time of the research.7 Those same three brands captured only 35 percent of the overall smoking market. Most popular among adults were generic, private label or plain-packaged cigarettes.8 While adults seem more likely to make decisions based on price, children seem more affected by advertising campaigns , whoever the declared audience for those ads may be. While the illegality of tobacco and alcohol sales to youth requires those industries to take the position that any effect on youth is a spillover from ads directed at legal audiences they have a right to attempt to reach, the entertainment industry can assert not only the spillover argument but also a right to direct ads to children, and it appears that they at least partially direct those ads to kids. The Federal Trade Commission, in its 2000 report Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children,9 addressed two questions posed by the president: Do the movie, music recording and electronic games industries promote products that they themselves say warrant parental caution in contexts in which children will be a substantial percentage of the audience, and do the industries intend...