If you were the manufacturer of a smelly, expensive consumer product that was not only highly addictive but also extremely dangerous, what would you do? Would you market your product at informed adults and tell them clearly and rationally just why they should buy into a lifetime of health-threatening dependency? Of course not.
Would you instead build an aura of cool sophistication and macho ruggedness around the product and hope to recruit as many impressionable young people as possible?
After all, the younger you catch them, the more likely they are to stay hooked to your addictive product for life.
That's just what cigarette manufacturers have done for most of this century, and their tactics have made them vast fortunes. In the last two years, the tobacco industry has got a loud wake-up call. Some 40 states in America are currently seeking massive compensation from the industry to cover health care for their citizens. In the course of the litigation, a marketing document was uncovered that revealed what anti-smoking groups have thought for a long time: "The basis of our business," it said, "is the high school student."
Acknowledging such insidious targeting, President Bill Clinton pledged to put "Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man out of your children's reach forever". Joe Camel is the cartoon character used to promote Camel cigarettes; a survey revealed that as many six-year-olds in America identified him as Mickey Mouse. The President's measures include allowing only black-and-white ads with no pictures in youth-oriented magazines, a ban on poster advertising for cigarettes within 300 metres of schools and the total ban on tobacco brand-name sponsorship of sporting events. In Ireland, rules governing the advertising of cigarettes are laid down by the Department of Health. Cigarette advertising is forbidden on any electronic media (radio or TV) and there are strict rules governing the contents of any newspaper or magazine ad. A cigarette ad here cannot, for example, show images of people. This contrasts sharply with American advertising, which relies heavily on showing fun-loving young people engaged in a variety of sporty activities.
One of the most clearly "targeted" of all cigarette brands is Virginia Slims, aimed at young women. Even its name plays on the fear of being overweight that is common among young women and seems to associate the idea of smoking with staying slim.
A key point in the Irish advertising guidelines is that cigarette advertising cannot be placed in any publication aimed at people under the age of 18. However, the reality of our reading material makes this more ambiguous than it sounds. Sunday newspapers, for example, are family newspapers - some of them even have cartoon sections - yet they carry cigarette advertising.
In magazines, one of the most expensive places that an advertiser can place an advertisement is on the visible-to-all back cover. Turn over any magazine and you'll notice how many are taken up with cigarette advertising. In larger markets than Ireland, women's magazines are targeted at specific age groups - so, for example, you'll have a magazine that is specially aimed at women over 25. In Ireland, the market is so small that such precise targeting is not possible, and readership tends to cover all age groups.
The latest JNRR (Joint National Readership Research) reveals that U, an Irish-produced women's magazine, has 110,000 readers, with 17,000 of them young women between the ages of 15 and 19. The current issue of U contains three cigarette ads. Recognising that the "under 18 rule" simply doesn't work, anti-smoking pressure groups have long called for a total ban on cigarette advertising. A recent decision by the RTE Authority suggests that these groups are at last making some headway.
The RTE Guide has been the subject of very public criticism for its acceptance of cigarette advertising. Antismoking campaigners put forward clear and persuasive reasons why the magazine should not accept cigarette advertising: RTE is a semi-state organisation and the Guide is a family magazine. Nora Ahern, advertising manager for the RTE Guide, said recently that the RTE Authority has decided that cigarette advertising is to be phased out of the magazine. In 1998 only one cigarette ad per issue will be permitted and from January 1999 there will be a total ban. She admitted that there was no legislative reason why the authority took this action - it was the result of outside pressure. The loss of income for the publication is considerable and runs, according to Ahern, into the hundreds of thousands of pounds.
interim measures
In advance of a total ban on advertising the anti-smoking pressure group ASH Ireland is lobbying for the interim measure of a ban on cigarette advertising on the front and back pages of newspapers and magazines.
According to an ASH spokesperson the presence of such highly visible advertising encourages the attitude among young people that "adults are comfortable with the whole idea of smoking". The suggestion of such a ban was immediately backed by Fianna Fail, Labour and the Green Party; the Greens went on to say they would support a total ban on cigarette advertising.
A new EU directive aims to standardise the advertising and promotion of tobacco across Europe. Much of what it suggests is already in place in Ireland, including the under-18 rule. It further suggests that the amount of expenditure on advertising and promotional activity must be approved by the Minister for Health, who must also approve any event sponsorship. Such an event cannot mainly involve, or be aimed at, people under 18.
grim statistics
All this lobbying for advertising restrictions are set against a backdrop of some very grim statistics. About 6,000 people in Ireland die from tobacco-related illnesses each year. What is worrying is that smoking itself is not dying out as an addiction. A study of sixth-class pupils revealed that more than 48 per cent had smoked at some time and 9 per cent smoked every day. Public health specialist Dr Fenton Howell says 25 per cent of 16 year-olds smoke. Statistics further show it is young girls that are taking up cigarettes in ever increasing numbers. Given the proven link between smoking and cancer, these statistics suggest a public health crisis stretching far into the future. Sports sponsorship is another avenue of tobacco promotion, but it is under threat from various states and the EU. The tobacco industry defends sports sponsorship saying that it only sponsors sports which have an adult appeal, such as motor racing and golf.
adult appeal?
Explaining the rationale behind Marlboro's very visible sponsorship in motor racing, a spokesperson said: "The car racer can be considered as a cowboy of modern times; he carries the same image of adventure and virility, a thirst for danger, freedom . . . with a cowboy on one side and a car on the other, Marlboro shows itself as authentically and ancestrally modern."
At the same time no one can dispute that young pre-teen and teenage boys form a significant segment of the TV audience for motor racing.
The other main sport that benefits from cigarette sponsorship is golf - but it, too, no longer belongs to middle-aged men in brightly coloured V-neck jumpers. The profile of the typical golf watcher has changed, helped by the arrival of the very cool Tiger Woods.
Advertising and the marketing of cigarettes cannot of course shoulder the entire blame for young people smoking. Under the law, cigarettes cannot be sold to anyone under 16. Two years ago a study showed that more than 80 per cent of shops in north-east Dublin illegally sold cigarettes to 12 year-olds. In April of this year, a study by the Department of Health revealed where young people between the ages of 12 -18 get their cigarettes (see table).
Yet, according to ASH, no shop owner has been prosecuted for breaking the law. It's difficult to understand why on the one hand the State, through the Department of Health, is willing to spend money on anti-smoking campaigns and to pick up the tab for hospital patients with smoking-related illnesses, yet on the other hand it seems unwilling to stop young people from getting their hands on cigarettes.
