Cigarette Marketing

Cigarette Marketing Tobacco companies have done whatever it takes to get their product out and known to consumers. Through their advertisements in magazines and newspapers, on billboards and through promotion, the cigarette companies are trying hard to sell their products. The purpose of cigarette ads and promotions is to make sure smokers keep smoking, get people who quit to start smoking again and increase the number of cigarettes people smoke each day. Most importantly, cigarette ads and promotions encourage young people to start smoking. Many ads are specially made to attract teens and women (Jacobs). Around World War I, Cigarette companies put pictures of soldiers smoking on the packs. Since most people looked up to soldiers has heroes, this convinced people they should smoke. Cigarette companies soon realized that no enough women were smoking so they tried to appeal to women in their ads. Through ads, smoking has been pictured as going along with independence, careers, sexual freedom as well as beauty. Since the 1960’s, Virginia Slims ads have said, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” Ultra slims, the long thin cigarettes, were made for women. In ads of these types of cigarettes, the women look very thin to give the idea that smoking will make a person thin. In the 1920’s, Lucky Strike cigarettes targeted their ads towards women with the slogan, “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” Cigarette ads appear in most women’s magazines, such as Glamour, Redbook, Working Women, Cosmopolitan, People and Vogue. In 2007, Camel released No. 9 cigarettes which are made specifically for women. From their pink packaging to its “light and luscious” description, the Camel Company is doing whatever they can to entice women to their product (Elliott). The Youth have always been an important target of the cigarette companies because marketers know that at least 75 percent of smokers are hooked before the age of 21. Many of the cigarette advertising campaigns appeal more