The tobacco industry loses close to 5,000 customers every day in the US alone-- including 3,500 who manage to quit and about 1,200 who die. (1) The most promising "replacement smokers" are young people: 90% of smokers begin before they're 21, and 60% before they're 14! (2) To find their new customers, every day US tobacco companies spend $11 million to advertise and promote cigarettes (3) -- more than the US Federal Office on Smoking and Health spends to prevent smoking in an entire year. (4)
In the US, cigarette advertising links smoking with being "cool", taking risks, and growing up. At the same time the tobacco industry insists that it does not want children to smoke-- and backs up its claims with campaigns supposedly designed to discourage young people from smoking. But programs like "Tobacco: Helping Youth Say No" are not only slick public relations efforts designed to bolster industry credibility, they actually encourage youth tobacco use. By leaving out the health dangers, ignoring addiction, and glamorizing smoking as an "adult custom," these campaigns reinforce the industry's advertising theme presenting smoking as a way for children to exert independence and be grown up. (5)
Outside the US, central messages are wealth, health, consumption-- in short, "USA." According to Kenyan physician Paul Wangai, "Many African children have two hopes. One is to go to heaven, the other to America. US tobacco companies capitalize on this by associating smoking with affluence. It's not uncommon to hear children say they start because of the glamorous life-style associated with smoking." (6)
Francis Kabui was one of those children. He started smoking because the people in the cigarette commercials always wore shoes, a luxury many people in his country could not afford. Kabui, a 46-year-old farmer in the uplands of central Kenya, has smoked British-American Tobacco's (BAT's) Sportsman cigarettes since he was 14, and he still sends his wife or young sons to the local kiosk to buy three or four at a time.
Kabui smoked his first cigarette under the illusion that it was healthy. He hoped smoking might be a "passport to prosperity." Now Kabui is suffering from lung cancer-- a disease so rare in Kenya that when he was diagnoses he believed it was divine punishment for his sins. (7)
Some promotional tactics proven effective in reaching young people around the world include the use of cartoon images, free cigarette giveaways, sponsorship of events that especially appeal to young people, and the use of cigarette logos on youth-oriented products.
RJR Nabisco's Joe Camel campaign is a particularly appalling example of the industry hitting its target. Modeled after James Bond and Don Johnson of Miami Vice, (8) Joe Camel has profoundly influenced even the very young. One study showed that nearly one-third of three-year-olds matched Joe Camel with cigarettes and that by age six, children were as familiar with him as with the Mickey Mouse logo on the Disney Channel! (9) The cartoon Camel catapulted Camel cigarettes from a brand smoked by less than 1% of US smokers under age 18 to a one-third share of the youth market-- and nearly one-half billion dollars in annual sales-- within three years. (10)
The enormous success of Joe Camel has apparently inspired other cartoon ad campaigns, including a penguin tested by Brown & Williamson, US subsidiary of transnational giant BAT industries. "Willie the Kool," the penguin used to promote Kool cigarettes, has buzz-cut hair, day-glo sneakers, sunglasses, and is very conscious of being "cool." (11)
With an addictive product, it doesn't take much to hook a new customer. For the tobacco companies, the expense of giving away free samples is dwarfed by the potential for long-term gains-- especially from new young customers.
Rock concerts, with their celebrity starts, Western image, and enormous following of young fans, have been a magnet for tobacco industry sponsorship outside the US. In countries where cigarette advertising is banned or restricted, sponsoring live or televised concerts enables the companies to get around local regulations.
Sports sponsorship is especially insidious, because it implies that smoking and fitness mix. Young people seeing cigarette logos linked with their heroes, excitement, speed and triumph are likely to lose sight of the reality of death, disease and addiction. In the US, companies receive valuable television air time by sponsoring sports, and evade the federal ban on television advertising of tobacco.
Another clever way to keep cigarette brands constantly in the public eye and circumvent restrictions on advertising is known as "brand stretching"-- using cigarette logos on other products. Many of these products are fun and fashionable for children in the US and around the world, who become walking billboards for tobacco. US promotions in particular often have the added danger of rewarding cigarette consumption by offering merchandise in exchange for coupons from cigarette packs.
After declining every year for 25 years, US smoking rates increased slightly in 1991 (17) -- reflecting the tobacco industry's success at hooking young smokers. More than 3,000 US teens become regular smokers each day (2) , with girls smoking at a higher rate than boys. (18)
Transnational tobacco companies such as Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco, BAT Industries, and American Brands are also making their presence felt in other countries. In the developing world, per capita cigarette consumption has risen on average by more than 70% during the last 25 years. (22)