The Ultimate Smoke Screen

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the statistics on smoking and the tactics that tobacco companies use to advertise their products in order to show how advertisers convince smokers to use their products, despite the obvious risk to their health.

From the Paper:

"Advertising is defined as the activity of attracting public attention to a product or business, as by paid announcements in print or on the air. Advertisers make public announcement of their products, especially to proclaim the qualities or advantages of a product or business in order to increase sales. But in order for a product to be effectively advertised, it must have a major selling point in order to appeal to consumers. In the case of tobacco products, there is no obvious benefit to the consumer other than the gratification of their nicotine habit, and the advertisers are not interested in pointing out that their products are potentially addictive. Consequently, tobacco companies downplay the possible health risks associated with smoking and secondhand smoke. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission has prohibited tobacco companies from using television to advertise their products since the 1970s in order to discourage impressionable consumers from beginning the smoking habit. Therefore, the problem is that advertisers for tobacco companies have had to seek ways to present their products to the consumer without having to disclose the health risks that cigarettes pose to their customers and those people in the smokers' environment without violating FTC rules. Some of the ways that they have persuaded consumers to use their products is through icons such as Joe Camel, the sponsorship of sporting events, through Websites that oppose the findings of researchers, and through direct mail advertising campaigns that rally smokers through an appeal to their rights and freedoms. "

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