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Report Links Tobacco Marketing and Movies With Youth Smoking

Even brief exposure to tobacco ads can hook kids for life, study finds

August 22, 2008

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A new National Cancer Institute report has reached the government's strongest conclusion to date that tobacco marketing and depictions of smoking in movies promote youth smoking.

The 684-page report, The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use, presents definitive conclusions that tobacco advertising and promotion are causally related to increased tobacco use, and exposure to depictions of smoking in movies is causally related to youth smoking initiation.

The report also concludes that mass media campaigns can reduce smoking, especially when combined with other tobacco control strategies. However, youth smoking prevention campaigns sponsored by the tobacco industry have been generally ineffective and may actually have increased youth smoking, the report finds.

This report provides the most current and comprehensive analysis of more than 1,000 scientific studies on the role of the media in encouraging and discouraging tobacco use. Research included in the review comes from the disciplines of marketing, psychology, communications, statistics, epidemiology, and public health.

"The media have been used to promote cigarettes and smoking through infamous advertising icons -- such as the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel -- and through tobacco images in Hollywood movies," said Ronald M. Davis, M.D., senior scientific editor, director of the Henry Ford Health System's Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.

On the other hand, Davis notes the media also have been used to increase smoking cessation and reduce smoking initiation, through paid advertising campaigns and public service announcements about the dangers of smoking.

The report also concludes that:

• Cigarettes are one of the most heavily marketed products in the United States. Between 1940 and 2005, U.S. cigarette manufacturers spent about $250 billion (in 2006 dollars) on cigarette advertising and promotion. In 2005, the industry spent $13.5 billion (in 2006 dollars) on cigarette advertising and promotion in the U.S. -- $37 million per day on average.

• Much tobacco advertising targets the psychological needs of adolescents, such as popularity, peer acceptance and positive self-image. Advertising creates the perception that smoking will satisfy these needs.

• Even brief exposure to tobacco advertising influences adolescents' attitudes and perceptions about smoking and smokers, and adolescents' intentions to smoke.

• The depiction of cigarette smoking is pervasive in movies, occurring in three-quarters or more of contemporary box-office hits. Identifiable cigarette brands appear in about one-third of movies.

• When allowed by a nation's constitution, a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising and promotion is an effective policy intervention that prevents tobacco companies from shifting marketing expenditures to permitted media.

• The tobacco industry works hard to impede tobacco control media campaigns, including attempts to prevent or reduce their funding.

Both tobacco industry and tobacco control forces are harnessing the media to influence the attitudes and behavior of the American public. In today's media landscape, which has expanded beyond traditional channels such as newspapers, magazines, radio, and television to the Internet and interactive video gaming -- the challenge is even more urgent.

Although 46 million Americans have stopped smoking, 45 million Americans -- about 20 percent of American adults -- still smoke and nearly 4,000 adolescents smoke their first cigarette each day.

Tobacco use is the single largest cause of preventable death in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 400,000 premature deaths per year and reduces the life expectancy of smokers by an average of 14 years.

The editors of the report outline several steps that have been proposed to reduce use of the media in promoting tobacco use and increase its use in discouraging tobacco use, including:

• Impose a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising and promotion;

• Adequately fund mass media campaigns and protect them from tobacco industry efforts to impede them;

• Monitor tobacco industry activities including public relations and advertising expenditures in a changing media environment;

• Use research to inform tobacco control policy and program decisions;

• Place anti-tobacco advertisements before films to partially counter the impact of tobacco portrayals in movies; and

• Increase public awareness of tobacco industry attempts to shut down public health campaigns.

"The tobacco industry tried for five years to shut down our successful truth youth smoking prevention campaign," said Dr. Cheryl Healton, president and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation.

"Ninety percent of adult smokers began before the age of 20, so cultivating new smokers is critical to Big Tobacco's business model, to replace the more than 400,000 adults who die from tobacco annually with new smokers. Keeping young people from starting to smoke is a critical part of the equation if we want to make major strides toward saving lives. Bold, effective counter-marketing campaigns that reduce smoking rates and change social norms are proven effective in doing just that," she said.

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