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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume 4
Fall 2005
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Advertising and the Tobacco Industry - Page 7
By Monica Yung
High maintains that "there is absolutely no evidence that imagery has led anyone to start smoking [but] that family and friends are the major influences on smoking by the young" (72). Nevertheless, despite the skeptics, advertising must have some degree of influence on consumers since the industry continues to invest billions of dollars to market their products.
Two of the most widely advertised products in American culture today are beer and cigarettes, both of which are addictive and damaging. Despite the potential hazards of these products, they are nonetheless deeply rooted in American society and generally have a positive and appealing image. The beer and tobacco industries have employed effective and identical marketing strategies, nestling their products in the American imagination behind a smoke-screen of power and positive associations that conceal their destructive effects. It is incontestable that the tobacco and beer industries both utilize external and internal control to secure a place for their products in mass media and create associations that engender a socially acceptable identity for their products; the difference in these campaigns is the gendered appeal of tobacco advertising. While some may disagree about the effectiveness of the advertising, or whether it is aimed at brand selection rather than the creation of a new market, the morality of the advertising strategies goes largely unchallenged. It is hoped that this examination of tobacco advertising will serve to lift the smoke-screen of deception from the eyes of consumers, and to initiate a more productive debate.
Works Cited
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High, Hugh. Does Advertising Increase Smoking? London : Institute of Economic Affairs, 1999.
Hilts, Philip J. Smokescreen . Massachusetts : Addision-Wesley Publishing Company Inc., 1996.
Newsday.com. 3 Mar 22. <http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--legislature legal0322mar22,0,2901065.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire>.
McGowan, Richard. Business, Politics, and Cigarettes . Connecticut : Quorum Books, 1995.
Pope, Tara Parker. Cigarettes. New York : The New Press, 2001.
Scott, Ben. "Beer." Culture Works: The Political Economy of Cutlure , ed. Richard Maxwell. Minneapolis , London : Univ. Minnesota Press, 2001.
Taylor, Peter. The Smoke Ring: Tobacco, Money, and Multinational Politics. New York : Pantheon Books, 1984.
Thibodeau, Michael, and Jana Martin. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes . New York : Abbeville Press Publishers, 2000.
Tyrrell, Ian. Deadly Enemies . Australia : UNSW Press, 1999.
Whelan, Elizabeth M. A Smoking Gun: How the Tobacco Industry Gets Away with Murder , ed. Stephen Barrett. Philadelphia : George F. Stickley Co, 1984.
White, Larry C. Merchants of Death. New York : Beech Tree Books, 1988.