SMOKING CIGARETTES ADVERTISING

Smoking Cigarettes Advertising

Smoking Cigarettes Advertising

Introduction

The history of cigarette advertising is a story punctuated by striking new health information and regulatory intervention. The first and longest era extends from the 1920s, when the mass market for cigarettes reached maturity, to the year 1950. In these years the Camel, Lucky Strike, and Chesterfield brands accounted for more than 80 percent of all cigarette sales. We tend to remember this era as one in which smoking was considered glamorous, even romantic. But at the time, popular opinion about smoking was also expressed in such unglamorous terms as “coffin nails” and “smoker's cough,” not to mention “weed,” “gasper,” “wheezer,” and “lung duster.” The symptoms of smoking, especially “smoker's cough,” were alarming enough to arouse popular suspicion and authoritative abhorrence.

Athletic coaches warned athletes to avoid tobacco. Popular heroes such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison publicly denounced cigarette smoking. In the early 1920s, legislation was introduced at the state level to restrict or even prohibit cigarette smoking. Many physicians were deeply suspicious of smoking's effects, though few argued there was conclusive evidence of mortal long-term effects. Consumer Reports noted in 1938 that “unbiased scientists have tried to determine the harmfulness of smoking and have tried, on the whole, in vain.”

Smoking cigarettes advertising

Cigarette manufacturers were one of the first industries to advertise widely on television. They had deep pockets and could afford to gamble on a new advertising medium, footing the bill for a host of early classic television programs. Ironically, in just a few short decades, they were cast away from the medium they helped create.

Almost every television show from the forties through the early-sixties had a primary sponsor each week. To compensate for the relatively low audience numbers TV offered, stars were expected to be seen personally using or endorsing the sponsor's products.

As television expanded its reach and proved more effective as a marketing tool, advertisers lined up to buy spots and main sponsor's were no longer required or desired; not having one big sponsor meant less interference in the content of the program.

Here are a few examples of how smokes were sold using television personalities and cartoon characters. Topper (1953-1956) was a sitcom that featured the aristocratic Cosmo Topper (Leo G. Carroll) and his piss elegant ghostly visitors George and Marion Kirby (played by Anne Jeffries and Robert Sterling). What else would they be doing with their time off together but smoking?

Cosmo really gets into it, he's simply mad about his Camels, "They're mild, the way I like mildness. And they have flavor, the way I like flavor!" It looked more like he was smoking crack!

TVparty-er David Mikelberg tells us, "You mentioned that Leo G. Carroll 'looked more like he was smoking crack' in the Camel commercial. Did you also notice on the credits that the co-writer of that particular episode was Stephen Sondheim? Mama Rose, Sweeney Todd, Cosmo Topper - all just a bit mad. This could explain the look on Carroll's ...