Tobacco Advertising and Teens

Marketing Strategies Cigarette Companies Use to Target Kids

© Susan Carney

Feb 9, 2007

Everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health, and tobacco prevention efforts are everywhere. So why do so many teens continue to do it? Tobacco advertising may impact that decision more than we realize. We know that kids feel peer pressure from other kids in their everyday lives. But the teens and adults in cigarette advertising may be one of the most influential peer groups of all.

Targeting Teens

As they move into their teens, kids often feel insecure about their appearance and their popularity. Cigarette ads use these insecurities to make empty promises. Ads give teens the message that smoking can help them become attractive, desirable, and independent when the reality is quite different. Smoking can cause bad breath and yellow teeth, isolate teens from largely non-smoking peers, and possibly lead to a deadly, lifelong habit.

Toughness and Masculinity

Images such as the Marlboro Man equate smoking with a macho ruggedness that is appealing to men and boys. This theme mirrors the pressures many boys face to be “tough”. Boys may believe that smoking will give them the aura of coolness they are searching for.

Body Image and Femininity

Tobacco companies have specifically targeted women and girls for many years by associating specific brands with slimness. In fact, cigarette advertising often depicts smoking as a weight management tool. This plays into the cultural pressures to be thin that many girls and women experience.

Tobacco Companies Need Kids

There are several reasons why tobacco companies target children and teenagers. In order to keep profits up, new customers need to be recruited to replace the thousands of smokers that die each day. Tobacco companies know that very few people begin smoking as adults; therefore, their best bets for these new customers are kids.

Ads are often geared specifically for teens. They use colorful graphics and images that catch their attention. They run in magazines that have a large teen readership. In stores, cigarettes are often placed close to candy displays and other products popular with kids. Promotional giveaways and tie-ins to sports and music events also increase young people’s exposure to tobacco products.

All of this advertising seems to work. According to The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, most teenagers who smoke use one of the three most heavily advertised brands. Tobacco companies realize that once a teen smokes their brand, they are likely to remain loyal to that brand for the rest of their lives.

Check out the tobacco industry's latest shameful attempt in New Cigarette Targets Girls, and check out ways that you can help in the blog Kick Butts Day is Coming. Also see Teens and Alcopops for information on promoting alcohol to kids.

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