A Brief History Of Anti-Smoking Advertising

Introduction

As stated by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the main goals of all anti-smoking advertising is to encourage smoking cessation, increase public awareness, and to educate people, especially teenagers, about health problems that occur as a result of smoking. Both the government and private organizations have been launching various campaigns to accomplish this task.

History

America has a long history on anti-smoking advertising campaigns. Currently, the American Cancer Society (ACS) has added fuel to the fire started by these campaigns. The chief objective is to encourage natives to quit smoking. They observe third Tuesday of every November as "Great American Smokeout". Further, at their request, government has banned smoking in restaurants and workplaces.

Prior to 1950, different tobacco advertises were published during sponsored TV shows like "I've Got a Secret" and "To Tell the Truth". This resulted in several teenagers being attracted towards smoking. As a result, large-scale anti smoking advertising programs were developed to create public awareness. Over the years, citizens have shown great results, all thanks to these anti-smoking programs and plenty of smokers have successfully ditched this habit.

The first official blow was inflicted upon cigarette companies by the report prepared by Surgeon General's Advisory Committee in 1964. It published approximately 7,000 well-researched articles claiming that cigarette smoking can lead to lung cancer and other diseases.

American Congress in April 1970 passed the Public Health and Cigarette Smoking Act which banned cigarette advertising on televisions and radios. As this act was enforced, tobacco marketers became active and started manufacturing very subtle and sweet forms of cigarette to attract young minds especially the Joe Camel campaign which was designed to brainwash youngsters. Hence, politicians and plaintiffs heartily criticized these cartoons and forced both U.S. Congress and FTC (the Federal Trade Commission) to withdraw this campaign on 10th July, 1997. This steps was appreciated by several anti-smoking advertising programs.

Several anti-smoking advertising were launched by NGOs which became active in the commercial market. Due to their efforts, a tobacco settlement was made in 1999 where all cigarette billboards were asked to display anti-smoking messages.  The anti smoking advertising programs run by various NGOs were supported by magazine publishers. Consequently, a joint agreement was signed between publishing houses and tobacco companies. It said that no advertisements regarding smoking would be placed in 3 prominent magazines: Newsweek, Time, People and Sports Illustrated.

On February 27 2005, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was attended by 168 countries. All nations agreed to sign a treaty agreeing that tobacco advertising would be banned in their country unless their constitution prohibits it. The last effective step in this field was taken by enforcing a Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act on 22nd June 2010. It forbade tobacco companies from sponsoring cultural events, sports and concerts.

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