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Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising

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School Days – img3834

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The ads in this theme target young people by featuring high school or university students hawking cigarettes. Graduates in cap and gown, holding cigarettes (as in an ad for Chesterfield from 1940), were used none too subtly to portray smoking as a proud badge of adulthood. All of the leading cigarette brands, including Old Gold, Chesterfield, Cavalier, Winston, Camel, and Lucky Strike, took part in advertising to students. To this day, tobacco companies place point-of-sale advertisements in and around corner stores near high schools, where 3/4 of students reportedly stop by every day.

Ads for Old Gold from the 1920s claim that Yale and Princeton students found Old Golds to be the best of four leading cigarette brands in a blind taste test and that Harvard students liked Old Golds second-best. Decades later, in 1953, Cavalier ran a similar campaign, claiming that “87% of college women” and “83% of Princeton Seniors who were interviewed said ‘Cavaliers are Milder than the brand I had been smoking!’”

Some Chesterfield ads in the 1940s printed college football schedules, one included a smiling young college man with two books tucked under his arm and a caption reading, “the largest selling cigarette in America’s colleges,” and another Chesterfield ad from the period featured a young female model wearing “Chesterfield’s own graduation cap.” Old Gold continued targeting college students in the 1940s with its “Something New Has Been Added” campaign; one of these ads depicted a college man whistling as he walks by a group of co-eds, a shining “G” for Gold on his letterman’s sweater. Winston jumped on the bandwagon in the ’40s, too – an ad depicts two college students sitting on school steps amidst stacks of books as their professor walks by to correct their English, but not their smoking habits. Camel was by no means exempt, featuring a model holding up a college pennant which reads “CAMELS” instead of the name of the alma mater in 1942. In 1959, Lucky Strike was sponsoring and advertising “Campus Jazz Festivals.”

Tobacco companies, which continue to target vulnerable young people today, have a long-standing investment in hooking the teen market. As one R.J. Reynolds internal industry document from 1984 explains, “younger adult smokers have been the critical factor in the growth and decline of every major brand and company over the last 50 years. They will continue to be just as important to brands/companies in the future…” (1). Young smokers are crucial for tobacco industry success for two reasons: First, the vast majority of smokers begin smoking between the ages of 13 and 21, and almost nobody picks up the habit over the age of 24, thus, as another RJR document explains, “younger adults are the only source of replacement smokers” once older adult smokers pass away (2).

Even after harsh criticism from activists and policy makers, tobacco companies continue to advertise to the youth market. While they claim they target only “informed adults” of at least 21 years of age, recent ad campaigns tell a different story. Take a look at some of our other themes, including “Flavored Tobacco,” “Joe Camel,” “Newport Teases Teens,” and “Recent Menthol” to discover Big Tobacco’s ongoing teen marketing campaigns.

1. Teague, Claude E. “Research Planning Memorandum on Some Thoughts About New Brands of Cigarettes for the Youth Market.” R.J. Reynolds. 2 Feb 1973. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mqu46b00/pdf

2. Burrows, D.S. “Younger Adult Smokers: Strategies and Opportunities.” R.J. Reynolds. 29 February 1984. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tqq46b00/pdf

Get a Lift – img3722

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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 that proclaim cigarettes to be stimulants.

In these ads from the early 1930s, Camel provides readers with “personal experiences that point the way to increased energy.” Each ad features a few testimonials from folks of varying professions, explaining how in their line of work, it is important to “Get a LIFT with a CAMEL.” This slogan is at odds with Camel’s other contemporaneous slogan, “It takes healthy nerves,” which claimed that far from being energy-boosting, Camel actually relaxed smokers on the job.

“Tired?” the Camel ads ask. “No matter! Here’s a delightful way to restore your flow of energy … as now revealed by Science.” Most disturbingly of all, the ad falsely claims that the energy boost from Camels “occurs in a harmless and utterly delightful manner.”

The ads target a wide variety of audiences. In particular, one 1937 Camel ad explicitly targets young people with an ad featuring a sporty debutante, calling her “typical of the younger set who go in for vigorous outdoor sports.” Other ads feature older men in distinguished careers in order to target an older set of smokers. Men are also shown in a variety of high-energy jobs; from football quarterbacks to deep sea divers, from rail engineers to pilots, from newspaper men to architects, no one is left out. The ads take a similar approach with women, featuring air hostesses, business women, champion mountain climbers, and even non-working women. One ad from 1934 claims that Olympic Diving Champion Georgia Coleman was “tired out from diving – and then she smoked a Camel!” while another from 1935 says the same for a woman out shopping: “I don’t know any task as exhausting as shopping,” says the unnamed woman. “I often slip away for a Camel when I’m getting tired. A camel restores my energy.”

Indeed, careful attention is paid to non-working women in order to ensure they don’t feel alienated by the plethora of testimonials featuring men and women at work. “A crowded store is tiring,” reiterates Mrs. Van Brunt Timpson in 1935, who also claims that smoking a Camel helps her tackle her shopping. In an ad from the previous year, housewife Mrs. Charles Day says, “Camels pick up my energy,” and in yet another ad from 1935, “college girl” Marguerite Osmun is also quoted as feeling “refreshed” after smoking a Camel “when tired.”

It is shocking to compare these ads to those which claim certain brands calm the nerves, revealing the sheer adaptability of the cigarette and its wide-reaching appeal.

School Days – img8666

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The ads in this theme target young people by featuring high school or university students hawking cigarettes. Graduates in cap and gown, holding cigarettes (as in an ad for Chesterfield from 1940), were used none too subtly to portray smoking as a proud badge of adulthood. All of the leading cigarette brands, including Old Gold, Chesterfield, Cavalier, Winston, Camel, and Lucky Strike, took part in advertising to students. To this day, tobacco companies place point-of-sale advertisements in and around corner stores near high schools, where 3/4 of students reportedly stop by every day.

Ads for Old Gold from the 1920s claim that Yale and Princeton students found Old Golds to be the best of four leading cigarette brands in a blind taste test and that Harvard students liked Old Golds second-best. Decades later, in 1953, Cavalier ran a similar campaign, claiming that “87% of college women” and “83% of Princeton Seniors who were interviewed said ‘Cavaliers are Milder than the brand I had been smoking!’”

Some Chesterfield ads in the 1940s printed college football schedules, one included a smiling young college man with two books tucked under his arm and a caption reading, “the largest selling cigarette in America’s colleges,” and another Chesterfield ad from the period featured a young female model wearing “Chesterfield’s own graduation cap.” Old Gold continued targeting college students in the 1940s with its “Something New Has Been Added” campaign; one of these ads depicted a college man whistling as he walks by a group of co-eds, a shining “G” for Gold on his letterman’s sweater. Winston jumped on the bandwagon in the ’40s, too – an ad depicts two college students sitting on school steps amidst stacks of books as their professor walks by to correct their English, but not their smoking habits. Camel was by no means exempt, featuring a model holding up a college pennant which reads “CAMELS” instead of the name of the alma mater in 1942. In 1959, Lucky Strike was sponsoring and advertising “Campus Jazz Festivals.”

Tobacco companies, which continue to target vulnerable young people today, have a long-standing investment in hooking the teen market. As one R.J. Reynolds internal industry document from 1984 explains, “younger adult smokers have been the critical factor in the growth and decline of every major brand and company over the last 50 years. They will continue to be just as important to brands/companies in the future…” (1). Young smokers are crucial for tobacco industry success for two reasons: First, the vast majority of smokers begin smoking between the ages of 13 and 21, and almost nobody picks up the habit over the age of 24, thus, as another RJR document explains, “younger adults are the only source of replacement smokers” once older adult smokers pass away (2).

Even after harsh criticism from activists and policy makers, tobacco companies continue to advertise to the youth market. While they claim they target only “informed adults” of at least 21 years of age, recent ad campaigns tell a different story. Take a look at some of our other themes, including “Flavored Tobacco,” “Joe Camel,” “Newport Teases Teens,” and “Recent Menthol” to discover Big Tobacco’s ongoing teen marketing campaigns.

1. Teague, Claude E. “Research Planning Memorandum on Some Thoughts About New Brands of Cigarettes for the Youth Market.” R.J. Reynolds. 2 Feb 1973. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mqu46b00/pdf

2. Burrows, D.S. “Younger Adult Smokers: Strategies and Opportunities.” R.J. Reynolds. 29 February 1984. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tqq46b00/pdf

Calms your Nerves – img3643

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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.

School Days – img3853

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The ads in this theme target young people by featuring high school or university students hawking cigarettes. Graduates in cap and gown, holding cigarettes (as in an ad for Chesterfield from 1940), were used none too subtly to portray smoking as a proud badge of adulthood. All of the leading cigarette brands, including Old Gold, Chesterfield, Cavalier, Winston, Camel, and Lucky Strike, took part in advertising to students. To this day, tobacco companies place point-of-sale advertisements in and around corner stores near high schools, where 3/4 of students reportedly stop by every day.

Ads for Old Gold from the 1920s claim that Yale and Princeton students found Old Golds to be the best of four leading cigarette brands in a blind taste test and that Harvard students liked Old Golds second-best. Decades later, in 1953, Cavalier ran a similar campaign, claiming that “87% of college women” and “83% of Princeton Seniors who were interviewed said ‘Cavaliers are Milder than the brand I had been smoking!’”

Some Chesterfield ads in the 1940s printed college football schedules, one included a smiling young college man with two books tucked under his arm and a caption reading, “the largest selling cigarette in America’s colleges,” and another Chesterfield ad from the period featured a young female model wearing “Chesterfield’s own graduation cap.” Old Gold continued targeting college students in the 1940s with its “Something New Has Been Added” campaign; one of these ads depicted a college man whistling as he walks by a group of co-eds, a shining “G” for Gold on his letterman’s sweater. Winston jumped on the bandwagon in the ’40s, too – an ad depicts two college students sitting on school steps amidst stacks of books as their professor walks by to correct their English, but not their smoking habits. Camel was by no means exempt, featuring a model holding up a college pennant which reads “CAMELS” instead of the name of the alma mater in 1942. In 1959, Lucky Strike was sponsoring and advertising “Campus Jazz Festivals.”

Tobacco companies, which continue to target vulnerable young people today, have a long-standing investment in hooking the teen market. As one R.J. Reynolds internal industry document from 1984 explains, “younger adult smokers have been the critical factor in the growth and decline of every major brand and company over the last 50 years. They will continue to be just as important to brands/companies in the future…” (1). Young smokers are crucial for tobacco industry success for two reasons: First, the vast majority of smokers begin smoking between the ages of 13 and 21, and almost nobody picks up the habit over the age of 24, thus, as another RJR document explains, “younger adults are the only source of replacement smokers” once older adult smokers pass away (2).

Even after harsh criticism from activists and policy makers, tobacco companies continue to advertise to the youth market. While they claim they target only “informed adults” of at least 21 years of age, recent ad campaigns tell a different story. Take a look at some of our other themes, including “Flavored Tobacco,” “Joe Camel,” “Newport Teases Teens,” and “Recent Menthol” to discover Big Tobacco’s ongoing teen marketing campaigns.

1. Teague, Claude E. “Research Planning Memorandum on Some Thoughts About New Brands of Cigarettes for the Youth Market.” R.J. Reynolds. 2 Feb 1973. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mqu46b00/pdf

2. Burrows, D.S. “Younger Adult Smokers: Strategies and Opportunities.” R.J. Reynolds. 29 February 1984. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tqq46b00/pdf

Olympics – img7861

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The Olympic Games are touted as the premiere international sporting event for amateur athletes. Founded in 1894, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) wanted to keep corporate advertisements from associating with the Games in the name of maintaining the spirit of amateurism. Despite this, companies found ways to create financial links with the Olympics.

The tobacco advertisement in the Games first appeared in the 1920 Olympics.1 Tobacco companies placed advertisements in the official program and would often feature Olympic athletes in advertising campaigns. The advertising campaigns promoted the idea that their brand of cigarettes allowed athletes to lead healthy lives. Tobacco advertising in the Olympic Games reached its peak in the 1970’s and ‘80’s.

Cigarette companies paid for advertisements in popular magazines leading up and following Olympic Games. The advertisements would feature popular athletes such as swimmer Buster Crabbe, tennis player Lester Stoefen, hurdler Forrest Towns. Some of these ads were in the form of comic strips, and cigarette companies would often include quotes from the athletes about one of their Olympic races or copy explaining how the athletes used cigarettes to be successful.

In the 1980’s, the U.S. Tobacco Company was the official sponsor for the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. Along with their sponsorship, attendees were given company branded memorabilia and giveaways, in the hopes of building a larger brand following. Tobacco companies maintained close relationships with the Games up until the Canadian National Olympic committee banned tobacco marketing in the 1988 Winter Olympics. The Games were now smoke-free, a movement stemming from the idea that products associated with the Games and promoted by Olympic athletes heavily influenced children.1

However, cigarette companies found ways to circumvent the ban. During the 1996 Games in Atlanta, tobacco marketing surrounded the Olympics despite being prohibited from sponsorship and access to the venue itself. Philip Morris ensured that it was one of the first to greet tourists entering Atlanta for the Centennial Olympic Games by funding the construction of eight glass-enclosed smoking rooms at the Atlanta airport.

Although the tobacco industry has since been generally absent from direct or indirect affiliation with the Olympic Games, there have still been instances in which tobacco advertising seeps in. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, there was much controversy regarding Chinese cigarette companies and Olympics themed special-edition products.1 Some athletes have also taken on their own corporate sponsorship with tobacco companies. Policies regarding maintaining a tobacco-free Games throughout has been an area of scrutiny among independent research groups.

In preparation for its 2020 Summer Olympics, Japan has passed legislation hoping to transform its public smoking policy. In a plan released in January 2018, the Japanese government pledged to ban smoking indoors in the hopes to align themselves with the Tobacco Free Initiative from the World Health Organization (WHO) and IOC. Japan is among the last countries to ban smoking in places like hospitals and restaurants.

However, controversy has followed the Japan Olympic Committee, concerning sports ties with Japan Tobacco Incorporated, one of the largest tobacco conglomerates in the world. Many teams in Japan sport the Japan Tobacco JTI logo, and the company runs the volleyball world cup and owns the men’s volleyball team JT Thunders. The World Health organization recommends that tobacco advertising, especially that with exposure to youth, be banned. The WHO notes the heavy correlation between youth oriented tobacco advertising and tobacco usage.2 Japan Tobacco spends about ¥20 billion a year on its marketing and public relations, so there exists continual worry that the tobacco giant has influence over newspapers, government policies, and international sports competition sponsorships.3

1. Lee, Kelly, et al. “Smoke Rings: Towards a Comprehensive Tobacco Free Policy for the Olympic Games.” PLOS ONE, 7 Aug. 2015, journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0130091. Accessed 8 Aug. 2018.

2. WHO wants total ban on tobacco advertising.” World Health Organization, 30 May 2008, www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr17/en/. Accessed 20 Aug. 2018.

3. Brasor, Philip. “Media sidesteps calling Japan Tobacco out on advertising conflicts.” Japan Times [Tokyo]. Japantimes.co.jp, www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/01/14/national/media-national/media-sidesteps-calling-japan-tobacco-advertising-conflicts/#.W3xDkNhKjOQ. Accessed 21 Aug. 2018.

School Days – img3854

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The ads in this theme target young people by featuring high school or university students hawking cigarettes. Graduates in cap and gown, holding cigarettes (as in an ad for Chesterfield from 1940), were used none too subtly to portray smoking as a proud badge of adulthood. All of the leading cigarette brands, including Old Gold, Chesterfield, Cavalier, Winston, Camel, and Lucky Strike, took part in advertising to students. To this day, tobacco companies place point-of-sale advertisements in and around corner stores near high schools, where 3/4 of students reportedly stop by every day.

Ads for Old Gold from the 1920s claim that Yale and Princeton students found Old Golds to be the best of four leading cigarette brands in a blind taste test and that Harvard students liked Old Golds second-best. Decades later, in 1953, Cavalier ran a similar campaign, claiming that “87% of college women” and “83% of Princeton Seniors who were interviewed said ‘Cavaliers are Milder than the brand I had been smoking!’”

Some Chesterfield ads in the 1940s printed college football schedules, one included a smiling young college man with two books tucked under his arm and a caption reading, “the largest selling cigarette in America’s colleges,” and another Chesterfield ad from the period featured a young female model wearing “Chesterfield’s own graduation cap.” Old Gold continued targeting college students in the 1940s with its “Something New Has Been Added” campaign; one of these ads depicted a college man whistling as he walks by a group of co-eds, a shining “G” for Gold on his letterman’s sweater. Winston jumped on the bandwagon in the ’40s, too – an ad depicts two college students sitting on school steps amidst stacks of books as their professor walks by to correct their English, but not their smoking habits. Camel was by no means exempt, featuring a model holding up a college pennant which reads “CAMELS” instead of the name of the alma mater in 1942. In 1959, Lucky Strike was sponsoring and advertising “Campus Jazz Festivals.”

Tobacco companies, which continue to target vulnerable young people today, have a long-standing investment in hooking the teen market. As one R.J. Reynolds internal industry document from 1984 explains, “younger adult smokers have been the critical factor in the growth and decline of every major brand and company over the last 50 years. They will continue to be just as important to brands/companies in the future…” (1). Young smokers are crucial for tobacco industry success for two reasons: First, the vast majority of smokers begin smoking between the ages of 13 and 21, and almost nobody picks up the habit over the age of 24, thus, as another RJR document explains, “younger adults are the only source of replacement smokers” once older adult smokers pass away (2).

Even after harsh criticism from activists and policy makers, tobacco companies continue to advertise to the youth market. While they claim they target only “informed adults” of at least 21 years of age, recent ad campaigns tell a different story. Take a look at some of our other themes, including “Flavored Tobacco,” “Joe Camel,” “Newport Teases Teens,” and “Recent Menthol” to discover Big Tobacco’s ongoing teen marketing campaigns.

1. Teague, Claude E. “Research Planning Memorandum on Some Thoughts About New Brands of Cigarettes for the Youth Market.” R.J. Reynolds. 2 Feb 1973. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mqu46b00/pdf

2. Burrows, D.S. “Younger Adult Smokers: Strategies and Opportunities.” R.J. Reynolds. 29 February 1984. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tqq46b00/pdf

School Days – img3855

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The ads in this theme target young people by featuring high school or university students hawking cigarettes. Graduates in cap and gown, holding cigarettes (as in an ad for Chesterfield from 1940), were used none too subtly to portray smoking as a proud badge of adulthood. All of the leading cigarette brands, including Old Gold, Chesterfield, Cavalier, Winston, Camel, and Lucky Strike, took part in advertising to students. To this day, tobacco companies place point-of-sale advertisements in and around corner stores near high schools, where 3/4 of students reportedly stop by every day.

Ads for Old Gold from the 1920s claim that Yale and Princeton students found Old Golds to be the best of four leading cigarette brands in a blind taste test and that Harvard students liked Old Golds second-best. Decades later, in 1953, Cavalier ran a similar campaign, claiming that “87% of college women” and “83% of Princeton Seniors who were interviewed said ‘Cavaliers are Milder than the brand I had been smoking!’”

Some Chesterfield ads in the 1940s printed college football schedules, one included a smiling young college man with two books tucked under his arm and a caption reading, “the largest selling cigarette in America’s colleges,” and another Chesterfield ad from the period featured a young female model wearing “Chesterfield’s own graduation cap.” Old Gold continued targeting college students in the 1940s with its “Something New Has Been Added” campaign; one of these ads depicted a college man whistling as he walks by a group of co-eds, a shining “G” for Gold on his letterman’s sweater. Winston jumped on the bandwagon in the ’40s, too – an ad depicts two college students sitting on school steps amidst stacks of books as their professor walks by to correct their English, but not their smoking habits. Camel was by no means exempt, featuring a model holding up a college pennant which reads “CAMELS” instead of the name of the alma mater in 1942. In 1959, Lucky Strike was sponsoring and advertising “Campus Jazz Festivals.”

Tobacco companies, which continue to target vulnerable young people today, have a long-standing investment in hooking the teen market. As one R.J. Reynolds internal industry document from 1984 explains, “younger adult smokers have been the critical factor in the growth and decline of every major brand and company over the last 50 years. They will continue to be just as important to brands/companies in the future…” (1). Young smokers are crucial for tobacco industry success for two reasons: First, the vast majority of smokers begin smoking between the ages of 13 and 21, and almost nobody picks up the habit over the age of 24, thus, as another RJR document explains, “younger adults are the only source of replacement smokers” once older adult smokers pass away (2).

Even after harsh criticism from activists and policy makers, tobacco companies continue to advertise to the youth market. While they claim they target only “informed adults” of at least 21 years of age, recent ad campaigns tell a different story. Take a look at some of our other themes, including “Flavored Tobacco,” “Joe Camel,” “Newport Teases Teens,” and “Recent Menthol” to discover Big Tobacco’s ongoing teen marketing campaigns.

1. Teague, Claude E. “Research Planning Memorandum on Some Thoughts About New Brands of Cigarettes for the Youth Market.” R.J. Reynolds. 2 Feb 1973. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mqu46b00/pdf

2. Burrows, D.S. “Younger Adult Smokers: Strategies and Opportunities.” R.J. Reynolds. 29 February 1984. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tqq46b00/pdf

School Days – img3856

by

The ads in this theme target young people by featuring high school or university students hawking cigarettes. Graduates in cap and gown, holding cigarettes (as in an ad for Chesterfield from 1940), were used none too subtly to portray smoking as a proud badge of adulthood. All of the leading cigarette brands, including Old Gold, Chesterfield, Cavalier, Winston, Camel, and Lucky Strike, took part in advertising to students. To this day, tobacco companies place point-of-sale advertisements in and around corner stores near high schools, where 3/4 of students reportedly stop by every day.

Ads for Old Gold from the 1920s claim that Yale and Princeton students found Old Golds to be the best of four leading cigarette brands in a blind taste test and that Harvard students liked Old Golds second-best. Decades later, in 1953, Cavalier ran a similar campaign, claiming that “87% of college women” and “83% of Princeton Seniors who were interviewed said ‘Cavaliers are Milder than the brand I had been smoking!’”

Some Chesterfield ads in the 1940s printed college football schedules, one included a smiling young college man with two books tucked under his arm and a caption reading, “the largest selling cigarette in America’s colleges,” and another Chesterfield ad from the period featured a young female model wearing “Chesterfield’s own graduation cap.” Old Gold continued targeting college students in the 1940s with its “Something New Has Been Added” campaign; one of these ads depicted a college man whistling as he walks by a group of co-eds, a shining “G” for Gold on his letterman’s sweater. Winston jumped on the bandwagon in the ’40s, too – an ad depicts two college students sitting on school steps amidst stacks of books as their professor walks by to correct their English, but not their smoking habits. Camel was by no means exempt, featuring a model holding up a college pennant which reads “CAMELS” instead of the name of the alma mater in 1942. In 1959, Lucky Strike was sponsoring and advertising “Campus Jazz Festivals.”

Tobacco companies, which continue to target vulnerable young people today, have a long-standing investment in hooking the teen market. As one R.J. Reynolds internal industry document from 1984 explains, “younger adult smokers have been the critical factor in the growth and decline of every major brand and company over the last 50 years. They will continue to be just as important to brands/companies in the future…” (1). Young smokers are crucial for tobacco industry success for two reasons: First, the vast majority of smokers begin smoking between the ages of 13 and 21, and almost nobody picks up the habit over the age of 24, thus, as another RJR document explains, “younger adults are the only source of replacement smokers” once older adult smokers pass away (2).

Even after harsh criticism from activists and policy makers, tobacco companies continue to advertise to the youth market. While they claim they target only “informed adults” of at least 21 years of age, recent ad campaigns tell a different story. Take a look at some of our other themes, including “Flavored Tobacco,” “Joe Camel,” “Newport Teases Teens,” and “Recent Menthol” to discover Big Tobacco’s ongoing teen marketing campaigns.

1. Teague, Claude E. “Research Planning Memorandum on Some Thoughts About New Brands of Cigarettes for the Youth Market.” R.J. Reynolds. 2 Feb 1973. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mqu46b00/pdf

2. Burrows, D.S. “Younger Adult Smokers: Strategies and Opportunities.” R.J. Reynolds. 29 February 1984. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tqq46b00/pdf