Tobacco advertising

Tobacco advertising is the advertising of tobacco products or use (typically cigarette smoking) by the tobacco industry through a variety of media including sponsorship, particularly of sporting events. It is now one of the most highly regulated forms of marketing. Some or all forms of tobacco advertising are banned in many countries.

The first known advertisement in the United States was for the snuff and tobacco products of P. Lorillard and Company and was placed in the New York daily paper in 1789. Advertising was an emerging concept, and tobacco-related advertisements were not seen as any different from those for other products: their negative impact on health was unknown at the time. Local and regional newspapers were used because of the small-scale production and transportation of these goods. The first real brand name to become known on a bigger scale in the USA was "Bull Durham" which emerged in 1868, with the advertising placing the emphasis on how easy it was "to roll your own".

The development of color lithography in the late 1870s allowed the companies to create attractive images to better present their products. This led to the printing of pictures onto the cigarette cards, previously only used to stiffen the packaging but now turned into an early marketing concept. By the last quarter of the 19th century, magazines such as Punch carried advertisements for different brands of cigarettes, snuff, and pipe tobacco. Advertising was significantly helped by the distribution of free or subsidized branded cigarettes to troops during World War I and World War II. The second invention was a cigarette-making machine developed in the 1880s.

Modern advertising was created with the innovative techniques used in tobacco advertising beginning in the 1920s.

Advertising in the decades leading up to World War II consisted primarily of full page, color magazine and newspaper advertisements. Many companies created slogans for their specific cigarettes and also gained endorsements from famous men and women. Some advertisements even contained children or doctors in their efforts to sway new customers to their specific brand. Much of these advertisements sought to make smoking appear fashionable and modern to men and women. Also, since the health effects of smoking weren't entirely proven at this time, the only real opposing argument to smoking was made on moral grounds. However, there were still a substantial number of doctors and scientists who believed there was a health risk associated with smoking cigarettes. During World War II, cigarettes were included in American soldier's C-rations since many tobacco companies sent the soldiers cigarettes for free. Cigarette sales reached an all-time high at this point, as cigarette companies were not only able to get soldiers addicted to tobacco, but specific brands also found a new loyal group of customers as soldiers who smoked their cigarettes returned from the war.

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