Cigarette Ads Snare Teens as Well as Adults

We all believe we are more immune to the effects of advertising than we really are. That's one of the reasons why ads for cigarettes work so well. Never mind the ads in magazines or the so-called product placement of cigarettes in movies. A study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine showed that even the display ads found in stores increase the chances that younger teenagers who can't legally buy cigarettes will try smoking.

Other promotional gimmicks, like free makeovers, are also, not surprisingly, pretty effective at getting young people to experiment with smoking.

Indeed as Jocelyn Noveck points out in an Associated Press article on the launch of a new Camel brand of cigarettes aimed at women, "80 percent of new smokers are under the age of 18, and one-third of teenagers now smoking will eventually die from it. "

Source: SJ Slater et al, "The Impact of Retail Cigarette Marketing Practices on Youth Smoking Uptake." Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (Vol. 161 No. 5, May 2007), available in full for free