Newport Cigarettes Advertisement
Did you know that among all causes of preventable death in the U.S., cigarette smoking is the leading cause (ABC News 2012)? Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched a very graphic anti-smoking campaign. Their $54 million campaign, known as Tips From Former Smokers, features several short videos of real people and the perils of smoking cigarettes. Read this ABC News article for more information on the campaign. Or, if you like visuals, watch the PSA. Let me warn you, you may find it disturbing.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zWB4dLYChM&w=560&h=315]
Is this type of campaign informative? IMO, definitely. Will it be effective? Well….recent reports from the CDC suggest that shortly after airing the PSA’s, the weekly number of calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW doubled and visits to the website www.smokefree.gov have more than tripled (USA Today 2012).
Now, you may be wondering why I chose to start with this. I wanted to provide a brief public health perspective on smoking before I talked about my newest post. In this latest post, I show
the latest Newport advertisement in the April 2012 issue of Essence magazine. See previous Newport advertisements in Essence magazines here:
Here is the recent advertisement. Is this advertisement negative? And if so, can an ad become negative because of the type of product being advertised?
References:
Conley, M. (2012, March 15). CDC Launches Graphic Anti-Smoking Campaign. ABC News. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/03/15/cdc-launches-graphic-anti-smoking-campaign/
Stobbe, M. (2012, March 30). CDC: Ads spark huge increase to quit smoking line. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/health/story/2012-03-30/CDC-Ads-spark-huge-increase-to-quit-smoking-line/53896854/1
