Tobacco advertising and the art and science of persuasion
"I know a maiden fair to see,
Take care!
She can both false and friendly be,
Beware! Beware!
Trust her not,
She is fooling thee."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Hyperion
There has been a great deal of tobacco control literature over the past decade regarding how advertising is used to persuade consumers to purchase tobacco, and ultimately to become loyal brand smokers. In a similar manner the literature increasingly describes methods to "counter advertise;" i.e., to use advertising in an attempt to persuade individuals to quit smoking, or better yet, to not initiate smoking. The article by DiFranza and Pollay in this issue of journal raises an intriguing question: What really is advertising and what is its aim? Advertising, the noun, is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as "the action of attracting public attention to a product or business." "To make public announcement of; especially, to proclaim the qualities or advantages of (a product or business) so as to increase sales," is the entry for the verb, advertise. Derived from the old French advertir or in English advert, our now modern word advertising has its roots in a word meaning, "to turn toward."
As I look at the word and the concept of advertising in light of its definition, I probe a bit further into its underlying theory and research to better understand the nature of advertising in general and tobacco advertising specifically. O'Keefe writes in Persuasion: Theory and Research* that "the advertiser's task is to get the consumer to believe that the product has various attributes thought desirable by the consumer (and, correlatively, to avoid having the consumer believe that the product has seriously undesirable attributes)." This is particularly relevant to tobacco advertising, as advertisers and tobacco executives attempt to portray as desirable a product with many undesirable attributes; e.g., yellow teeth, stained fingers, tobacco smell, face wrinkles, loss of breath, loss of taste, sickness, and death. To those of us in public and community health, these facts are among the most compelling reasons not to smoke or purchase tobacco products, but it creates an incredible challenge to advertisers as they attempt to influence consumers to "turn toward" the product by making its attributes desirable. As a result there have been advertisements that depict various types of "pleasure" associated with smoking. One can think of the "Kools" tobacco advertisements with their play on the word "cool" to convey various desirable attributes such as "moderately cold; neither hot or cold," "to calm down, slow down or relax," or the slang connotation of "composure."
Consequently, tobacco advertising aims to have the consumer believe that the tobacco products have these desirable characteristics while ignoring the very obvious undesirable attributes. This manipulation can especially prey on youth who are psychologically receptive to such messages. Unfortunately, without any counter-advertising efforts by health or regulatory agencies about the dangers of smoking, youth may not have pre-existing beliefs regarding the negative or undesirable aspects of tobacco. Fortunately, in a number of countries such counter-advertising messages are fairly widespread through various media outlets, placing tobacco advertisers in the position of needing to focus on changing beliefs rather than merely influencing beliefs.
However, one must be careful not to stop at that level of
understanding. There is indeed a very sophisticated art and science of
advertising with its roots in what is referred to as "persuasion
research." "Persuasive methods" and "message
manipulation" have been subject to rigorous research and much is known
about the preferred ways of boosting tobacco sales through influencing and
changing consumer beliefs. Those of us in health research are generally unaware
of this body of knowledge and how it has been used to create and sustain
smokers. We become familiar with such research so we can use it in our arsenal
of tools aimed at counter-advertising tobacco. As DiFranza
and Pollay write, we need to review "Cigarette
Package Design: [as] Opportunities for Disease Prevention." Recently
While one may argue that the "warning labels"
found on tobacco products in the
Tobacco advertisers have been greatly influenced by research
indicating that "the influence of advertising on receivers' attitudes
toward a given brand or product comes about not only through receivers' beliefs
about the product's characteristics, but through the receivers' evaluation of the
product itself (the receivers' "attitude-toward-the-ad"). As
receivers have more favorable evaluations of the
advertising, they come to have more favorable
evaluations of the product being advertised. And this effect occurs over and
above the advertising's effects on product beliefs."* We have seen this
phenomenon on a large scale each year in the
Since tobacco products are prohibited from television
advertising in the
We may conclude that advertising is not only an art, but also a science with a strong empirical base that can persuade consumers to influence or change beliefs by advertising attention to the perceived desirable attributes of the product as well as offering an advertising approach that is of itself appealing and attractive. As such tobacco advertising is not unlike the maiden in the verse from Longfellow found in the beginning of this article.
"Beware! Beware! Trust her not, She is fooling thee."
Daniel R. Longo, Sc.D.
Professor, Director of Research, and
Co-Director Virginia Ambulatory Care Outcomes Research Network (ACORN)
Department of Family Medicine
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine
MCV Campus
West Hospital, 10th Floor, Room 1012
1200 East Broad Street
P.O. Box 980251
Richmond, Virginia 23298-0251
804-828-9625 (phone)
804-827-0227 (fax)
drlongo@vcu.edu
Competing interests
The author declares that he has no competing interests.
Note
*O'Keefe DJ. Persuasion: Theory and
Research.
A version of this article appeared in Tobacco Induced Diseases Vol. 1: 95-96, June 2002.
Copyright © 2003 BioMed Central Ltd.