Camel Cigarettes

Strike it Rich! An Analysis of an Advertisement for Camel Cigarettes
Debuting in 1990, the Camel Cash Lotto advertisement would appear in store windows, magazines and newspapers. It would take up one full side of a page and unless it was in the newspaper it would be in color. The yellow bolded words “Strike It Rich!” appear at the top of the page, with the next two lines saying “Camel Cash Lotto” in a larger, red bolded font with a thin yellow outline. It meshes nicely with the green background that slowly fades to yellow. The first thing you undoubtedly notice in the advertisement is the camel, named Joe Camel, who is very nicely dressed in a white tux with a black bow tie (Califano). The camel is rocking the black shades that you can just barely see through, which then shows his huge eyes staring right back at you. The camel appears to have his hair styled and he is smoking the signature Camel Cigarette while having a slight smirk. In the camels’ hand there are three one dollar bills that seem to be his winnings from the Lotto. Overall, the advertisement does a great job of grabbing the attention of consumers with the detail and arrangement the designer used.
The primary purpose for this ad is to
make people want to smoke Camel Cigarettes. By making it look “cool” to smoke, they hope to attract the non-smokers/ younger generation to start trying their product. They also target the older population as well with the gambling aspect. It usually grabs people attention when you see you have a chance to win, so by combining their cigarettes with winning money it gives their company a positive image. The other purpose of the ad is to promote their camel lotto tickets, combining them in a single ad kills two birds with one stone.
I would say the ad is emotionally calming; it looks like the camel is very happy with his life and wouldn’t want it any other way. If I stretched my thoughts on the ad, it could appear to have a sex appeal. I mean Joe Camel in the ad is probably the best looking camel out there. The shape of the letters make it an attention grabber along with the boxes of text on the bottom. There is really no particular order I have to look at the ad. Starting anywhere on the ad I would get the same effect. The one thing I find really interesting in the ad is surgeon general warning box in the bottom right. It states that “Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risks to your health.” This is something that has to be on the ad because it is a law that was put into effect to warn the consumers. It isn’t the warning message in particular that really surprises me, but the fact it is in a white box. It only can make me assume that is why the camel’s tux is white, so the box will blend it and not attract too much attention. Because why would a cigarette company want the warning label that says it is not healthy to consume their product to be the most obvious part?
The historic back ground of this ad is that it was one of the last to have Joe Camel on it.
In a survey done by the American Medical Association in 1991, they found that more children recognized Joe Camel than Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny. For this reason anti-smoking groups started to use Joe Camel as their “celebrity”. That caused Camel to formally retire Joe in 1997. As for the Camel Cash Lotto that doesn’t exist anymore but instead Camel started a promotion system from 2000 to 2007 called “Camel Cash” which was fake currency that could be used to buy items from the Camel Cash Catalogue. Since then Camel has not done much advertising because of the laws put in place, but they have remained to be sold in 90 countries and is one on the top five global brands
(Brooke).
The Strike it Rich Camel ad is both effective and ineffective to me. It is effective because it definitely made me take a closer glance at it. With the camel and colors the ad uses it drew my attention from the moment I looked at it. But it is ineffective at making me want to use the product. There isn’t anything on the ad that makes me want to run to the store and buy Camel Cigarettes. Overall the advertisement did a decent job; there are really only two main things an ad tries to accomplish which is to draw attention to their product and making you want to purchase their product. Camel successfully completed one of the two for me, but for other people it could very well do both.

Works Cited
Brooke, James. "Attorneys General Defend Landmark Tobacco Pact," New York Times (June 25, 1997): D6.
Califano, Joseph, Jr. "No Immunity For Big Tobacco," Washington Post (March 19, 1998): A21.