This limitation follows a judgment of the US Federal District Court in 2006 that the terms “low tar”, “light”, “ultra” and “soft” are misleading (United States). To date, more than 50 countries have banned the terms “mild”, “mild” and “low tar” as part of the ban on misleading packaging under Article 11 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control . However, recent research in Australia, Canada and the UK suggests that banning the terms “light” and “light” may not be enough to significantly reduce false beliefs about the risks of different cigarette brands (Borland et al. 2008). Recent evidence even suggests that significant amounts of adult and young smokers in countries such as the UK continue to report false beliefs about the relative risk of large cigarette brands (Hammond et al. 2009).
According to Nielsen media surveillance data from 1999 to 2003, Adolescent exposure to youth prevention ads Philip Morris and Lorillard coincided with that of anti-smoking advertising for all state and national tobacco discouragement programs (Wakefield et al. 2005b). However, exposure to youth prevention ads sponsored by tobacco companies was found to be higher in segments of adult audience and relatively lower among adolescents (Wakefield et al. 2005b). Despite this high degree of exposure, the effectiveness of these campaigns to reduce smoking for young people is questionable. In short, far from a fully independent determinant of smoking by young people, the influence of colleagues is another communication channel in which the industry can benefit to promote smoking young people. It is important to note that the tobacco industry routinely attributes smoking to peer pressure, but does not recognize the relationship between advertising and peer influence or the effects of advertising on regulatory behavior and perceptions of popularity and peer acceptance. Tobacco manufacturers have consistently stated that cigarette marketing aims to attract and retain current adult smokers for their cigarette brands, but the revised evidence shows that these efforts also affect the influence of peers to encourage smoking and smoking among young people.
Internal industry documents clearly show that cigarette companies paid close attention to the first econometric studies, that the findings of these studies were consistent with internal industry research and that this knowledge reported the use of promotions to lower prices (Chaloupka et al. 2002). Given the numerous studies showing that tobacco consumption among young people responds to changes in the prices of tobacco products, it can be concluded that the extensive use of the promotion industry to lower prices has led to higher tobacco consumption among young people than would have been without these promotions happened. These authors found that since 1995, when RJR developed its marketing campaigns to better adapt to the lifestyle, image identity and attitude of trendsetters, Camel’s brand identity had actively changed to better convey the non-conformist personality. Camel emphasized events such as promotional music tours to link the brand and smoke to attractive activities and symbols for hipsters and their emulating masses. Lewit and colleagues were able to avoid some of the limitations in econometric analyzes of the impact of advertising on smoking young people in their research into the link between cigarette advertising on television in the late 1960s and the level of smoking by adolescents.
Extensive restrictions on advertising and sales promotion appear to significantly reduce cigarette smoking, but partial bans are often circumvented . A wide variety of product displays can be used, which is an important communication device, such as advertisements (Chapman 1994; Fraser 1998; Barnsley and Jacobs 2000; Wakefield et al. 2002a). Young people want to be popular, seen as individuals by their friends and look like the ones they admire most.
In addition, as a complementary tactic to support the effects of packaging design on brand identity, tobacco manufacturers have used product design features to attract specific market segments. Industry internal documents assessments show that cigarette manufacturers used chemical additives to improve the taste of smoke and reduce hardness, ventilated filters and other product modifications to attract novice smokers (Burrows 1984; Tindall 1984; Stevenson and Proctor 2008). Menthol and other flavor additives, including fruit and candy flavor, were used gun range as marketing tools to attract young smokers, and the results of the national study confirm that the use of menthol cigarettes is disproportionately common in younger and newer adolescents’ smokers. Non-menthol flavor agents are banned from cigarettes, but are still used in some cigars, smokeless tobacco products and new tobacco products such as bulbs, sticks and strips. There are also indications that tobacco manufacturers have used menthol and other flavor additives to increase the attractiveness of smokeless tobacco products for young people.
The effects of tobacco advertising on tobacco use have been addressed through reports from the Surgeon General and a monograph from NCI . As documented in these reports, the promotion and publicity of the tobacco industry causes tobacco use, including its initiation among young people. This conclusion has been supported by a multitude of scientific and government reports, and the strength of the causality evidence continues to grow.
Tobacco manufacturers have made extensive use of cigarette packaging to influence consumer perception of the potential risks of their products. Words like “light” and “light” were apparently used in the past to indicate taste and taste, but “light” and “soft” brands were promoted in advertisements like “less harmful” (Pollay and Dewhirst 2001; Wakefield et al. 2002a). The “light” and “soft” descriptors were also applied to brands with higher levels of filter ventilation, small holes in cigarette filters . Filter ventilation not only dilutes cigarette smoke to produce deceptively low numbers of machine-resistant tar and nicotine (NCI 2001; Kozlowski and O’Connor 2002), but also produces “lighter tasting” smoke, which amplifies misleading descriptors in packages.