Tobacco companies must continue to target new smokers because people quit and people die. Children are the easiest targets.
According to a study reported in an April 1996 article in the Journal of Marketing, children are three times more susceptible to advertising than are adults.
Children are particularly attracted to promotional items offered by tobacco companies.
Joe Camel is one of the most recognized brand icons of any product in the world by children, despite the fact that it is no longer used in this country. Its continued association with cigarettes make it a lasting danger to adolescents.
A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI, October 1995) found that teens respond to cigarette ads than to pressure from their peers.
A 1994 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA. 1994;271(7). indicates a direct relationship between the launch of the Virginia Slims campaign in the late 1960s to the rapid increase in smoking among adolescent girls.
A 1998 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA. 1998;279(7)) estimates that 34% of the experimentation by adolescents in California between 1993 and 1996 could be attributed to tobacco advertising. |
