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Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising

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Smoking Guns – img12148

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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.

Smoking Guns – img12149

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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.

Smoking Guns – img12150

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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.

Kamel Modern – img5940

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Marlboro has historically been the leading cigarette brand among youth, while Camel consistently pushes forward creative advertising concepts to gain youth market share from Marlboro and hook teens and young adults. The Red Kamel campaign of 1996 is just one of Camel’s many advertising techniques employed to target the previously uninitiated or new smoker. RJR’s “marketing objectives” with Red Kamel revolved around “adding new cutting edge associations to the Camel brand family” (1).

The Red Kamel brand slogan clearly targeted youth irreverence: “Back After 80 Years For No Good Reason Except They Taste Good” (2). The Kamel brand was first introduced in 1913 and existed until 1936 when R.J. Reynolds replaced it with today’s Camel brand. The limited time “reintroduction” of Red Kamel in 1996 provided a retro-vintage appeal to the brand, and RJR designed the ads to be “innovative—new and old at the same time” (3). An RJR spokesperson explained that the characters portrayed in Red Kamel ads were presented as “interesting, independent people,” indicating that “the type of person who smoked Kamels in the early 1900s would still smoke them today.” The Red Kamel campaign offered RJR a new youth marketing technique to replace the Old Joe Camel campaign which had just been “voluntarily” withdrawn.

One internal document explains that the brand positioning was “lust for living,” and that the product was meant to appear “lustier” as well as “rebellious, adventurous, authentic,” with a “hip, unexpected” style clearly targeting youth markets (4).

 

1. “Red Kamel & Kamel Menthe (Men-Th) Factbook.” 07 Jan 1999. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tqm72d00

2. “RJR Re-Establishes Red Kamel Brand February 1, 1996 (960201) Statement and Q&A for Response Only.” RJ Reynolds. 01 Feb 1996. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/oml13d00

3. “Red Kamel Is Back!” Caravan. 08 Apr 1996. http://tobaccodocuments.org/nysa_ti_s1/TI56580057.html

4. “1997 (19970000) Business Planning Meeting.” RJ Reynolds. 17 Sept 1996. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/xyi72d00

Smoking Guns – img12152

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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.

Makes you Sick – img12691

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The Association for Smokers Awareness (ADESF) launched the Makes You Sick campaign in Brazil in 2012. As its title suggests, the campaign aimed to increase awareness of how smoking physiologically harms our bodies. The advertisements regarding the plane, submarine, and rocket incidents are different from the typical advertisements that display health effects of smoking—which usually show negative, visceral images of the body and specific organs—because they are more abstract in portraying these effects: they draw an analogy between how one faulty part of a machine led to many deaths and how smoking negatively impacts human health.

The black-and-white color scheme allows the viewer to notice the complex framework of the airplane, submarine, and rocket. This highlights the complexities of our own individual bodies and how all the individual parts work together to allow us to perform the biological functions that keep us alive. Therefore, if even one part of the complex machine we call our body is damaged through smoking, it can have catastrophic effects on our overall wellbeing.

Although these advertisements succeed in emphasizing how even the slightest damage to our bodies due to smoking can ultimately have a drastic impact, they would be more effective if accompanied by information about how to seek aid regarding quitting, as “fear appeals are most effective when accompanied by equally strong efficacy messages, such as information to call a quitline for help.”

References:

http://www.tobaccofreeflorida.com/powerfuladswork/#sthash.UuXoIU6P.dpuf

Smoking Guns – img13987

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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.