This November 5, 1990 issue of People magazine, with its cover story about teens and sex, is targeted to teen readers. It also had 16 tobacco ads in its pages. The following issue with Kevin Costner on the cover only carried 2 ads for cigarettes. Advertising has become very sophisticated and advertisers have learned that by choosing their issue they choose their audience.1 In recent years, though, there has been a reduction in magazine ads as more emphasis is put on other types of promotion.
The United States, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 1997 reports that 70.2% of Caucasian girls, 72.7% of Hispanic girls, and 66.8% of African-American girls report having tried smoking.2
In the six years following the introduction of Virginia Slims and the liberation theme of the accompanying ad campaign, the number of teenaged girls who smoked more than doubled. Researchers at the University of California San Diego Cancer Center found that between 1967 and 1973, smoking initiation rates soared. There was:
- a 110% increase in smoking start-up rates among 12 year old girls
- a 55% increase among 13 year old girls
- a 35% increase among 17 year old girls3
1 Women and Girls Against Tobacco.
2 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, United States, 1997. MMWR. 1998;47(SS-3).
3 Pierce JP. Smoking initiation by adolescent girls, 1944-1988: an association with targeted marketing, JAMA, February 1994. |
