The Badvertising Institute * Welcome

Tobacco Advertising

How they get you hooked

Background

Advertising…if it’s honest, is a good thing. It's an effective way of informing the public about the products and services available to them. It serves a useful purpose.

The problem is,

if you have a product that is capable of doing this

And this to its users…

A product that kills its users and those around them,

what can you say to advertise it?

Tobacco companies have faced this question since the 1940’s, when their own research began to reveal the harmfulness of tobacco use.

Many other kinds of companies over the years have recalled their products (from aspirins to automobiles) when they discovered that their products were harming even a few people—whether from contamination, tampering, or flaws in design—and they replaced those faulty products with safe ones.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a safe cigarette. The ingredients are inherently addictive and deadly, and the design puts searing hot smoke into your lungs.

Since the tobacco industry couldn't just put a safe product back on the shelf, their choice was either to go out of business or cover up the truth. We all know the result. They chose to lie about their product and and they’ve been deliberately trying to confuse the public about the dangers of smoking ever since.

According to recently revealed industry documents, a 1953 meeting of tobacco industry executives at New York's Plaza Hotel was the starting point for a conspiracy…a conspiracy that was deliberately designed to cast doubt on links between cancer and cigarettes.

Dozens of similar internal industry documents reveal that the tobacco industry has also been consciously misleading the American public about whether or not tobacco was addictive, and whether or not it caused cancer and other diseases. Tobacco company executives even lied under oath (and got away with it) in our highest court of law.

In addition, they have manipulated nicotine levels and marketed cigarettes to teenagers, even as they publicly denied both practices. They have also suppressed and destroyed potentially incriminating documents and research.

This is an industry that spends 1.2 million dollars / hour to deceive the public…to get innocent children addicted, cajole smokers into thinking that they are safe and they have a right to smoke, and dupe the public into thinking that the tobacco companies are respectable corporate citizens.

How do they do that? Let’s take a look…

For our purposes, let's say that anything designed to put a company or it's products in a favorable light is considered advertising...including promotion, publicity, marketing, and merchandising.

Tobacco Advertising (anything that puts tobacco products in a favorable light) can be divided into to three categories…

1) Legitimate paid advertising, promotion, marketing or publicity (see Traditional Venues)

2) The innovative ploys used to get around the tobacco laws and regulations (see End Runs)

3) The devious, behind-the-scenes, under-the-table, covert maneuvers, schemes, and political pressures to increase their profits at any cost. (see Other Sleazy Tactics)