Before the First World War, smoking was associated with the “loose morals” of prostitutes and wayward women. Clever marketers managed to turn this around in the 1920s and 1930s, latching onto women’s liberation movements and transforming cigarettes into symbols of women’s independence. In 1929, as part of this effort, the American Tobacco Company organized marches of women carrying “Torches of Freedom” (i.e., cigarettes) down New York’s 5th Avenue to emphasize their emancipation. The tobacco industry also sponsored training sessions to teach women how to smoke, and competitions for most delicate smoker. Many of the advertisements targeting women throughout the decades have concentrated on women’s empowerment. Early examples include “I wish I were a man” so I could smoke (Velvet, 1912), while later examples like “You’ve come a long way baby” (Virginia Slims) were more clearly exploitive of the Women’s Liberation Movement. It is interesting to note that the Marlboro brand, famous for its macho “Marlboro Man,” was for decades a woman’s cigarette (“Mild as May” with “Ivory tips to protect the lips”) before it underwent an abrupt sex change in 1954. Only 5 percent of American women smoked in 1923 versus 12 percent in 1932 and 33 percent in 1965 (the peak year). Lung cancer was still a rare disease for women in the 1950s, though by the year 2000 it was killing nearly 70,000 women per year. Cancer of the lung surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death among women in 1987.
Dog
Snobbish Cigarettes – img5517
Snobbish Cigarettes – img5519
Family Pets – img10843
Family Pets – img10844
Let's Smoke Girls – img0547
Treat Not a Treatment – img5120
Treat Not a Treatment – img5121
Gift for Daddy – img4390
Depictions of children with their mothers or fathers in cigarette ads have the enormous ability to reinforce the respectability of smoking as a part of normal family life. Because this perception is often promulgated by the tobacco industry, it is no surprise that many tobacco advertisements took advantage of Father’s Day. Indeed, many print ads, particularly from the Baby Boomer era, depict children gifting cigarette cartons to their fathers. The images of youngsters worked to send a reassuring message to consumers about the healthfulness of the product, as youngsters represent purity, vibrancy, and life – concepts which can be dangerous when tied to tobacco products. An R.J. Reynolds ad from 1953, for example, depicts a woman and her two children ready to surprise Dad with Cavaliers. The accompanying text speaks directly to children, essentially selling the tobacco products to kids: “Make your Dad’s eyes light up…as he lights up his favorite smoke…with love from you to him on Father’s Day” 1953
Space – img5705
In 1949, on the heels of Lucky Strike’s 1931 ad campaign, “Do You Inhale?” and Philip Morris’ 1942 campaign, “Inhale? Sure, all smokers do,” P. Lorillard released a campaign for Embassy urging smokers to “Inhale [Embassy] to your heart’s content!” Lorillard claimed that Embassy’s extra length provides “extra protection.” The faulty concept was that because the cigarette was longer, it was able to better filter out toxins, since it took more time for the smoke to reach the smoker’s throat due to the long length through which it had to travel. In 1950, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigators had decided that king-size cigarettes, like Embassy, contained “more tobacco and therefore more harmful substances” than are found in an ordinary cigarette.
Lorillard’s particular choice of cliché, “to your heart’s content,” was misleading at best . The phrase was meant to impart a sense of happiness and healthfulness. Of course, inhaling would not have made anyone’s heart content; Instead, smoking has been recognized as a major cause of coronary artery disease, responsible for an estimated 20% of deaths from heart disease in the United States. Most ironically in the context of this advertisement campaign, a smokers’ risk of developing heart disease is thought to greatly increase as his or her cigarette intake increases.
Treat Not a Treatment – img5122
Gift for Daddy – img4391
Depictions of children with their mothers or fathers in cigarette ads have the enormous ability to reinforce the respectability of smoking as a part of normal family life. Because this perception is often promulgated by the tobacco industry, it is no surprise that many tobacco advertisements took advantage of Father’s Day. Indeed, many print ads, particularly from the Baby Boomer era, depict children gifting cigarette cartons to their fathers. The images of youngsters worked to send a reassuring message to consumers about the healthfulness of the product, as youngsters represent purity, vibrancy, and life – concepts which can be dangerous when tied to tobacco products. An R.J. Reynolds ad from 1953, for example, depicts a woman and her two children ready to surprise Dad with Cavaliers. The accompanying text speaks directly to children, essentially selling the tobacco products to kids: “Make your Dad’s eyes light up…as he lights up his favorite smoke…with love from you to him on Father’s Day” 1953
Treat Not a Treatment – img5123
Treat Not a Treatment – img5124
Calms your Nerves – img9720
In a prime example of marketing wizardry, tobacco advertisements have simultaneously presented cigarettes as both sedatives and stimulants. Ads worked to convince consumers that cigarettes would calm the smoker when he felt nervous, or pep him up when he felt sluggish. This theme features ad campaigns from a variety of cigarette brands, all proclaiming cigarettes to be sedatives. Many of the ads in this theme are for Camel cigarettes, and claimed that only Camel cigarettes “do not upset your nerves.” This claim implied that other cigarette brands are stimulants and do cause people to get the jitters, but Camels are the exception. Though Camel was prolific in their anti-nerves campaigns in the 1930s, they were certainly not the only tobacco brand to approach this advertising technique, nor the first.
In 1918, Girard cigars claimed that their cigar “never gets on your nerves,” a slogan which Camel also used over a decade later in 1933. Girard’s ads pose questions that many readers would invariably answer in the affirmative: “Are you easily irritated? Easily annoyed? Do children get on your nerves? Do you fly off the handle and then feel ashamed of yourself?” The ad forces most readers to question their behavior and convinces them that they need intervention, when prior to reading the ad, they felt nothing was wrong. The ad posits Girard as at least one thing that won’t cause anxiety and as the solution to the problems people never even knew they had.
Other ads positioned also their products as relaxing agents. A 1929 ad for Taretyon cigarettes claims that “Tareytons are the choice of busy, active people. People whose work requires steady nerves.” Similarly, many of Camel’s ads explain that people in high pressure situations can’t afford to feel nervous or to have shaky hands (sharpshooters, circus flyers, salesmen, surgeons). The ads don’t provide the reader with the opportunity to think that avoiding cigarettes altogether would be an option if they were worried about the nervous effects of smoking; Instead, Camels are presented as the only “solution” to the nicotine-jolt problem. The ads target a wide variety of audiences, both male and female, young and old, daredevil and housewife. Camel ensures that everyone feels the need for a Camel fix, siting common fidgets like drumming one’s fingers, tapping one’s foot, jingling one’s keys, and even doodling as signs that someone has “jangled nerves.”
Still more brands took the anti-anxiety approach in their ads. In 1933, Lucky Strike advertised that “to anxiety – I bring relief, to distress – I bring courage.” One such ad features a man sitting nervously in the waiting room of a dentist’s office as a woman offers him a Lucky Strike to ease his nerves. Similarly, a 1929 ad for Spud cigarettes poses the question: “Do you smoke away anxiety?” Presuming you answered yes, the ad explains, “then you’ll appreciate Spud’s greater coolness.” The 1938 “Let up – Light up a Camel” campaign explained that “people with work to do break nerve tension” with Camels, and that “smokers find that Camel’s costlier tobaccos are soothing to the nerves!” Even 20 years later, in 1959, King Sano cigars advertised that “the man under pressure owes himself the utter luxury of the new ‘soft smoke’ King Sano.”
Also of note, many of these ads claim that Camels provide their smokers with “healthy nerves,” misleadingly implying that Camel cigarettes themselves are healthy.
Gift for Daddy – img4402
Depictions of children with their mothers or fathers in cigarette ads have the enormous ability to reinforce the respectability of smoking as a part of normal family life. Because this perception is often promulgated by the tobacco industry, it is no surprise that many tobacco advertisements took advantage of Father’s Day. Indeed, many print ads, particularly from the Baby Boomer era, depict children gifting cigarette cartons to their fathers. The images of youngsters worked to send a reassuring message to consumers about the healthfulness of the product, as youngsters represent purity, vibrancy, and life – concepts which can be dangerous when tied to tobacco products. An R.J. Reynolds ad from 1953, for example, depicts a woman and her two children ready to surprise Dad with Cavaliers. The accompanying text speaks directly to children, essentially selling the tobacco products to kids: “Make your Dad’s eyes light up…as he lights up his favorite smoke…with love from you to him on Father’s Day” 1953
Couples in Love – img0695
Love and cigarettes, marriage and cigarettes, sex and cigarettes? Nothing is off limits in these tobacco advertisements which feature couples in love. The advertisements work cigarettes into the everyday lives of couples, seemingly bringing couples closer together or enhancing their sexual connection. In the 1920s and 1930s, women were pictured as part of a couple so as to lessen the shock value of women smoking. However, as times changed and women smoking became widely acknowledged, men and women continued to show up together in cigarette advertisements in romantic scenarios. These advertisements were particularly effective at targeting women, capitalizing on the stereotypical female desire to find a husband or be taken care of by a man. Often, however, these ads were also effective for men, who would imagine, after seeing one of the ads, that a woman sensuously falls into a man’s arms with just the whiff of a cigarette or the mingling of fumes.
We Don't Make Medical Claims – img5183
Towards the end of the era in which false medical claims were endemic (early 1950s) the Old Gold brand had a prolonged campaign – with more than 50 variations on this theme – in which they touted: “We Don’t Try to Scare You with Medical Claims.” Ironically, many of these ads in their fine print make outlandish statements that Old Golds were less irritating and thus safer than the competition. Somehow they calculated that the public would not see this obvious hypocrisy.
Note the white box strangely reminiscent of the Surgeon General’s warning introduced years later. In what can only be characterized as rank hypocrisy, they claim Old Gold’s are less irritating and easier on the throat.
Couples in Love – img0696
Love and cigarettes, marriage and cigarettes, sex and cigarettes? Nothing is off limits in these tobacco advertisements which feature couples in love. The advertisements work cigarettes into the everyday lives of couples, seemingly bringing couples closer together or enhancing their sexual connection. In the 1920s and 1930s, women were pictured as part of a couple so as to lessen the shock value of women smoking. However, as times changed and women smoking became widely acknowledged, men and women continued to show up together in cigarette advertisements in romantic scenarios. These advertisements were particularly effective at targeting women, capitalizing on the stereotypical female desire to find a husband or be taken care of by a man. Often, however, these ads were also effective for men, who would imagine, after seeing one of the ads, that a woman sensuously falls into a man’s arms with just the whiff of a cigarette or the mingling of fumes.
We Don't Make Medical Claims – img5188
Towards the end of the era in which false medical claims were endemic (early 1950s) the Old Gold brand had a prolonged campaign – with more than 50 variations on this theme – in which they touted: “We Don’t Try to Scare You with Medical Claims.” Ironically, many of these ads in their fine print make outlandish statements that Old Golds were less irritating and thus safer than the competition. Somehow they calculated that the public would not see this obvious hypocrisy.
Note the white box strangely reminiscent of the Surgeon General’s warning introduced years later. In what can only be characterized as rank hypocrisy, they claim Old Gold’s are less irritating and easier on the throat.
We Don't Make Medical Claims – img5189
Towards the end of the era in which false medical claims were endemic (early 1950s) the Old Gold brand had a prolonged campaign – with more than 50 variations on this theme – in which they touted: “We Don’t Try to Scare You with Medical Claims.” Ironically, many of these ads in their fine print make outlandish statements that Old Golds were less irritating and thus safer than the competition. Somehow they calculated that the public would not see this obvious hypocrisy.
Note the white box strangely reminiscent of the Surgeon General’s warning introduced years later. In what can only be characterized as rank hypocrisy, they claim Old Gold’s are less irritating and easier on the throat.
We Don't Make Medical Claims – img5190
Towards the end of the era in which false medical claims were endemic (early 1950s) the Old Gold brand had a prolonged campaign – with more than 50 variations on this theme – in which they touted: “We Don’t Try to Scare You with Medical Claims.” Ironically, many of these ads in their fine print make outlandish statements that Old Golds were less irritating and thus safer than the competition. Somehow they calculated that the public would not see this obvious hypocrisy.
Note the white box strangely reminiscent of the Surgeon General’s warning introduced years later. In what can only be characterized as rank hypocrisy, they claim Old Gold’s are less irritating and easier on the throat.
We Don't Make Medical Claims – img5191
Towards the end of the era in which false medical claims were endemic (early 1950s) the Old Gold brand had a prolonged campaign – with more than 50 variations on this theme – in which they touted: “We Don’t Try to Scare You with Medical Claims.” Ironically, many of these ads in their fine print make outlandish statements that Old Golds were less irritating and thus safer than the competition. Somehow they calculated that the public would not see this obvious hypocrisy.
Note the white box strangely reminiscent of the Surgeon General’s warning introduced years later. In what can only be characterized as rank hypocrisy, they claim Old Gold’s are less irritating and easier on the throat.
We Don't Make Medical Claims – img5192
Towards the end of the era in which false medical claims were endemic (early 1950s) the Old Gold brand had a prolonged campaign – with more than 50 variations on this theme – in which they touted: “We Don’t Try to Scare You with Medical Claims.” Ironically, many of these ads in their fine print make outlandish statements that Old Golds were less irritating and thus safer than the competition. Somehow they calculated that the public would not see this obvious hypocrisy.
Note the white box strangely reminiscent of the Surgeon General’s warning introduced years later. In what can only be characterized as rank hypocrisy, they claim Old Gold’s are less irritating and easier on the throat.
Couples in Love – img0714
Love and cigarettes, marriage and cigarettes, sex and cigarettes? Nothing is off limits in these tobacco advertisements which feature couples in love. The advertisements work cigarettes into the everyday lives of couples, seemingly bringing couples closer together or enhancing their sexual connection. In the 1920s and 1930s, women were pictured as part of a couple so as to lessen the shock value of women smoking. However, as times changed and women smoking became widely acknowledged, men and women continued to show up together in cigarette advertisements in romantic scenarios. These advertisements were particularly effective at targeting women, capitalizing on the stereotypical female desire to find a husband or be taken care of by a man. Often, however, these ads were also effective for men, who would imagine, after seeing one of the ads, that a woman sensuously falls into a man’s arms with just the whiff of a cigarette or the mingling of fumes.