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Cigarette Advertising Puts Women in the Picture

by Sanjiva Wijesinha
. . — — OMEN", predicted a
\X/ 1987 editorial In the
V V leading tobacco trade journal Tobacco Reporter, ’arc a prime target where any alert European marketing man is concerned "
Faced with falling cigarette sales among the adult men of the world, who have for generations been Its traditional customers. the Western world's tobacco industry has been cleverly tailoring its advertising campaigns during the last few years to Induce women to smoke.
Recent statistics reveal that in many countries today, more teenage girls arc smoking than teenage boys.
In the nations of the European Community, as many as a third of women aged 15-24 are now smoking — and as many as 40 per cent of pregnant women smoke.
Tht* Increase In smoking among women Is reflected In an Increase among them of smoking-re la ted diseases such as high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer. Female death rates from lung cancer arc climbing. In Scotland, for example, more women arc now dying from lung cancer than from breast cancer.
One of the main ways by which the tobacco companies have succeeded In putting the Tobacco Reporter's advice into practice Is by reaching their target audience through women's magazines — those glossy, popular periodicals that have enormous readerships and are read by females from all social backgrounds and age groups.
A recent survey of 71 of the most popular women's magazines In Europe revealed that they have a total readership of 50 million women In Europe atone.
These magazines arc equally popular throughout the world, where women often copy what the European woman wears and does because she represent* what Is modern and fashionable. Such a huge captive audience to ripe for Influencing through cleverly designed advertising.
Unfortunately, the European Community currently has no clear-cut policy on tobacco advcrtislng. This month, the European Council of Health Ministers meets in Brussels to vote on a proposal that will ban virtually all tobacco advertising (except advertising at the point of sale) throughout the European Community.
Much debate has gone on about this proposal, which has
been before the European parliament for some time — csp< daily since World Health Organisation (WHO)- statistics have shown that as many as 450,000 people die each year in the EC from smoking related diseases.
There Is growing pressure on the Health Ministers to vote in favour of the ban. particularly after the recent release of reports from countries such as Canada. Norway and New Zealand revealed that cigarette consumption fell in those countries after advertising was prohibited.
The most striking expert cnee has been that of New Zealand, which banned < iga-rctt< advertising in December 1990 — and found by the middle of 1991 that cigarette sales had fallen nearly 10 per cent.
Targeting their advertising campaigns at women and chil-
dren can easily produce the desired results as tobacco marketing people well know — If you catch a child young enough, she will get hooked for life. The British Medical As»Mx:iatlon s figures show that 60 per cent of smokers started their habit by age 13.
Says Vasso Papandreou. Social Affairs Commissioner of the European Community. If the European tobacco Industry wants lo maintain Ils share of the market, it has to recruit 5,000 new smokers every day from among the young people of Europe.” Millions of women in Europe (and all over the world, wherever Europe's popular women's magazines are read) are being exposed to positive favourable images of smoking through these magazines.
Dr Amanda Amos, lecturer in Health Education at Britain's
Edinburgh University, who surveyed the popular European women's magazines, found that only five of them followed a policy (like the world's most read' magazine, Readers Digest, does) of voluntarily refusing cigarette advertising.
Many of the others seemed lo be actively helping spread the message that It Is right for women to smoke.
This Is done not only through direct, paid for advertisements, but also in a more subtle way by using photographs of fashion models or famous personalities smoking — which projects the positive Impression that smoking la the popular and trendy thing to do.
None of the magazines would dream of showing a popular personality injecting herself with heroin or sniffing cocaine — but they think noth ing of publishing pictures of prominent female models indulging In the very act of tobacco abuse.
The futility of limited ban* on advertising is shown by the fact that tn Britain and Sweden (where restrictions are placed on cigarette advertising In magazines aimed at young women), there Is nbthlng to prevent tobacco ad* being placed in magazines for older women. The latter are equally popular among younger age groups, and are freely read by thousands of women in their liens and twenties.
Says Dr Amos: There is clear evidence that tobacco advertising particularly Influences young children. Womens magazines are full of tobacco advertisements, and lots of young girls are exposed to them."
In a detailed analysis, the New Zealand Department of Health concluded that cigarette advertising definitely increases the total number of people who smoke (and does not merely encourage "confirmed smokers to Change brands" as tobacco companies like to claim).
Magazines are a fertile medium In which to spread a promotional message.
They transcend national barriers — and the women's magazine* of Europe have for several years provided the alert marketers of the tobacco Industry with a large captive audience to whom they could freely spread their message-
By putting women into their pictures in today's tobacco advertisements. the tobacco industry is putting women into tomorrow's picture of high blood pressure, heart attacks and lung cancer.
Say* Dr Amos: "What we need today Is a Europe-wide ban on all tobacco promotion."
With smoking killing more than 100.000 women each year in the EC, and at least double that number in Europe as a whole, it is to be hoped that Europe's Health Ministers will vote to atop subjecting Europe's women to all this exposure.
(Dr Sanjtva Wijestnha trained as a medical specialist tn Sri Lanka, Eng land and Australia. Now based tn Hong Kong, he is a regular writer on health issues.)