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Case Study
Should tobacco advertisements have been banned in the UK?
Tobacco and associated products have been advertised in the Western world
since the 18th century, the first advertisement being for snuff and tobacco products of P.
Lorillard and Company and appearing in the New York Daily Paper in 1768. Advertising
was an emerging concept, and tobacco products with their unknown health risks were
seen as no different from anything else being advertised. The prime platforms for advert
placement were newspapers, billboards and magazines such as Punch. Recently,
marketing consultants ACNielsen announced that tobacco companies advertising in the
UK spent £25 million between September 2001 and August 2002, excluding sponsorship
and indirect advertising, with the majority being spent on press advertising and
billboards, showing how the tobacco industry has grown. However, much legislation
passed over the last decade has meant that tobacco advertisements are now banned
entirely from most forms of media in the European Union, the most recent being the
banning of cigarette vending machines from UK pubs with a £2,500 fine for noncompliance.
In this case study, I shall consider why the tobacco industry has been prevented
from advertising and promoting their products, and whether this could this be
considered an infringement of freedom of speech and expression on the advertiser’s
part, or simply an increased awareness of the dangers of smoking combined with the
efficacy of advertising. I will look at the nature of tobacco advertisements, the various
legislation passed and how the ban was gradually implemented, and consider how
effective the ban ultimately has been.
Tobacco companies have changed their advertising techniques over the years to
comply with what will be received best by the public as consumers: the development of
colour lithography in the 1870s meant companies were able to create attractive images,
which led to printing pictures onto the cigarette cards. These were previously only used
to stiffen packaging, but turned into an early marketing concept - the cards were
designed so the consumer would collect the images depicted on them, such as birds,
flags, Civil War generals, baseball players etc (Hartman, 2000). The most popular were
images of women wearing revealing clothing, which is an early example of the notion
that “sex sells”. The female market was seen as having the most growth potential, and
the 1960s Virginia Slims brand were aimed at women. Slogans included “You’ve come a
long way baby” and “Slimmer than the fat cigarettes men smoke” – claims about ‘light’
and ‘low-tar’ cigarettes were often used to attract women as consumers to start smoking
and discourage them from quitting (Myers, 2001). In the late 1980s, Camel cigarettes
launched the ‘Joe Camel’ campaign, which featured a suave looking camel with a
cigarette hanging out of his mouth, looking ‘cool’. It was designed to appeal to
youngsters, even featuring teenage and young camels smoking, in order to ‘induce many
young people to begin smoking or to continue smoking cigarettes’ (Federal Trade
Commission, 1997). It was suggested that young children were just as likely to recognise
Joe Camel as they were Fred Flintstone or Mickey Mouse. Tobacco marketing became
more subtle, such as cigarette shaped sweets being put on the market in order to appeal
to children. This led to an increased awareness and uptake of smoking in children and
young people (BMJ, 1996).
The first recognition of the possible negative impact of smoking came in the
1950s, when filter tips were added to cigarettes, and were branded as ‘safer’ and ‘less
potent’. Although they were lighter and contained less tar, they added no benefit to a
smoker’s health (National Cancer Institute, 2010). This was opposed in 1954 when the
tobacco industry launched the advertising campaign ‘A Frank Statement’, a series of
adverts designed to dispute reports that smoking could cause lung cancer amongst
other diseases and was dangerous. In the Frank Statement, the tobacco industry
announced that "the products [they] make are not injurious to health," and even that
they "always have and always will cooperate with those whose task it is to safeguard the
public health" (Tobacco Institute, 2000). It was not until 1962 that the first calls to
restrict tobacco advertising came about: the Royal College of Physicians highlighted
health problems associated with smoking, and suggested that advertising become
stricter. The compromise came in 1971 when tobacco companies were required by law
to include health warnings on cigarette and tobacco product packaging – they were
required to carry the words "Warning by HM Government: Smoking can damage your
health", and all press and poster advertisements were to include the reference "Every
pack carries a Government health warning" (ASH, 2011).
Essentially, it was decided that censorship of tobacco advertising should be
employed in order to ensure the public were fully aware of the dangers of smoking, and
to reduce the number of smoking related illnesses. The World Health Organisation
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was adopted unanimously by the 56th
World Health Assembly on 21 May 2003, and was designed "to protect present and
future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic
consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke" (WHO, 2011),
and it required all 168 countries who signed to ban tobacco advertising. This shows not
only the increased awareness of the dangers of smoking since tobacco adverts first
appeared, but the fact that people were now aware of how influential advertising could
be.
The first pragmatic step towards the banning of tobacco advertising in the media
was in 1965, when the government banned cigarette advertisements on television,
although advertisements for cigars and loose tobacco continued until 1991. In 1978, the
Independent Broadcasting Authority published a Code of Advertising Standards,
regulating all commercial television and radio broadcasting – tobacco and cigarettes
were deemed ‘unacceptable products’ and banned from being advertised in radio
commercials (ASH, 2011). This was preceded by years of parliamentary legislation
regarding the restriction of tobacco advertising being debated, proposed, and often
compromised by the tobacco industry, such as when Minister for Health Dr. David Owen
announced in Parliament that he had asked the industry to agree to a number of things,
including the abolition of cigarette advertising in the cinema, the use of stronger and
more prominent health warnings, and to consider reducing tobacco sponsorship of
sport (ASH, 2011), but the industry rejected most of these requests.
In 1986, legislation was passed that meant advertisers were not permitted to
show people smoking in their advertisements – the tobacco companies responded by
producing increasingly indirect, abstract and conceptual advertisements, though
adhering to the rule. Benson & Hedges created photomontages to be published on
posters and in print, and short experimental-type films (broadcast in the cinema) that
featured the recognisable gold cigarette packet in various surreal positions such as
taking the place of a coffin in a graveyard, with the adverts often devoid of words,
slogans or people (though the government warning remaining present). This was done
to avoid associating smoking with youth, glamour or a particular type of person, the idea
being that the audience would be unable to specifically identify with the situation
presented to them as it was so surreal and bizarre. This technique is reflected in modern
day advertising for products such as perfume or beauty products, where the consumer
cannot fully appreciate the product without it physically being in front of them, so the
(often glamorous) lifestyle is sold to them instead. The idea was that the public were
familiar with the gold packaging of Benson & Hedges products, and so the brand name
was irrelevant and did not need to be published. Silk Cut adopted a similar technique – a
campaign launched before the ban came into effect showed a pair of scissors cutting
through a purple ribbon with the Silk Cut logo on it. After the ban, the logo was removed
and left only the purple silk. A study showed that 98% of people still associated the
advertisements with Silk Cut, showing how effective advertising is. This also shows that
no matter how much legislation is passed to completely remove the promotion of
tobacco products all together, the government cannot erase over two hundred years of
advertising and the associations to the products that consumers have.
Preceding the General Election in 1997, the Labour Party included the
proposition in their manifesto that they would ban tobacco advertising all together. This
followed the European Commission introducing various legislation over a ten year
period to restrict tobacco advertising throughout Europe, with MEPs in the European
Parliament voting in favour of banning tobacco advertising altogether in 1992. It was
four years after the Labour victory that the UK Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill
was introduced in the House of Commons, though it was lost due to lack of
Parliamentary time. It was not until October 2002 that the Tobacco Advertising and
Promotion Act 2002 (BBC, 2002) was eventually passed by Parliament – the European
Directive stated that the laws were to be implemented by all member states by 2005.
This included phasing out the sponsorship of sports by tobacco companies. By 2003, the
EU had banned tobacco companies from using words such as ‘light’ or ‘mild’ in their
branding as it was thought that they mislead the consumer into thinking the product is
less dangerous than it actually is. Today, tobacco companies are banned from promoting
their products, including cigarettes, cigars and rolling tobacco, on television, radio, print
media, billboards, cinemas, and posters. Even Google and Microsoft do not allow the
promotion of tobacco products in their advertising networks (Google, 2011). There are,
however, some exceptions to the censorship – advertisements that appear within the
tobacco industry are permitted, as are those that appear in direct mail that has been
requested. They are also permitted in pubs, clubs and shops, as long as the total size of
the advertisement does not exceed that of an A5 piece of paper, with 30% of that being
taken up by government health warnings. Breaches of this will result in a £5,000 fine or
five months imprisonment. When this restriction came into effect in 2004, the tobacco
industry argued that the rules were “prevent[ing] them from going about their
legitimate business.” It could be argued that the tobacco industry has just as much right
as other companies to promote their products, and that the restrictions the government
has put on their advertising strategies are considered a breach of their right to freedom
of speech. The Human Rights Act (1998) guarantees a right to free speech, but also
allows exemptions for the protection of health. The Advertising Standards Authority
states that advertisements have a requirement to be 'legal, honest, decent and truthful'
(ASA, 2011), and it could be considered that by promoting a 'positive image for a deadly
product', the tobacco companies are being inherently misleading (ASH, 2011). So, it
could be argued that tobacco promotion undermines the freedom of the user to make a
reasoned choice.
But has the ban had the desired effect? Research conducted by Henry Saffer and
Frank Chaloupka suggests that there is much empirical evidence to support the notion
that there is a link between tobacco advertising and cigarette consumption, particularly
in children. The research paper suggests that “if advertising increases consumption, and
if a media ban reduces the average product of advertising, then an advertising ban will
have a negative effect on tobacco consumption” (Saffer and Chaloupka, 1999). The
evidence also shows that “comprehensive advertising bans can reduce tobacco
consumption, but a limited set of advertising bans will have little or no effect” (Saffer
and Chalouka, 1999). So in order to achieve the desired effect of a dramatic reduction in
tobacco consumption in the UK, the government needs to enforce a stricter ban whereby
all promotion of tobacco products are removed with no exceptions. Figures do suggest
that as the ban encompassed more forms of advertising, the number of smokers in the
UK dropped – in the 1950s, 80% of men smoked, but by 1974, when tobacco products
were required to contain a government health warning, the number of adult smokers in
the UK had dropped to 45%, and continued to fall until it reached less than 25% in 2001.
The numbers have since levelled off, with 21% of adults still smoking in the UK (BBC,
2011).
Although the ban means that tobacco advertisements are not permitted on
television, programmes, films and video games still contain images of characters
smoking, and those aimed at a younger audience should only contain incidents of
smoking when there is a substantial reason for doing so. Despite these restrictions,
children are still being exposed to portrayals of people smoking, and could still be
exposed to films, programmes or video games aimed at an older audience. The
government can restrict the advertising of tobacco products but only the sale to a
certain extent (not permitted to under 18 year olds). Children whose parents smoke are
going to be exposed to it whether advertisements exist or not, and are bound to
experience peer pressure into smoking at some point. So the ban of tobacco advertising
could be seen as a positive effort by the government to reduce consumption of tobacco
and smoking related illnesses, but ultimately challenged by the smokers themselves who
refuse to quit.
To conclude, I think that the banning of tobacco advertisements in the UK was a
perfectly feasible action taken by the government, and one that should have been
implemented years previously. I disagree with claims made by the tobacco industry that
the ban is an invasion of free speech, based on the clarification by the ASA that the
importance of the protection of health means that some advertising exemptions can be
enforced. I also disagree with the argument that as tobacco is a legal product, companies
should have the right to sell it - other potentially dangerous products that remain legal,
such as pharmaceuticals or firearms, may not be advertised, and I believe that tobacco
should be included. It is a unique product in that it is 'the only one that kills a large
fraction of its users when used as intended by the manufacturer' (ASH, 2011), and I feel
that this alone should be reason enough to ban the advertising of it all together. If
tobacco were introduced to the market today, it would be unlikely that it would be
permitted to be advertised at all. I feel that the dangerous nature of the product means
that it should not be permitted to operate in the same commercial environment as
others, and should be treated differently in terms of advertising and promotion.
References
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