Tobacco Marketing and Kids

The major cigarette companies, alone, spend over $5.5 billion each year (more than $15 million every day) to promote their products; and many of their marketing efforts directly reach kids.¹  Tobacco industry documents, research on the effect of marketing to kids, and the opinions of advertising experts combine to reveal the intent and the success of the industry’s efforts to attract new smokers from the ranks of children.

Industry Documents

Numerous tobacco industry documents make clear that the industry has perceived kids as young as 13 years of age as a key market, studied the smoking habits of kids, and developed products and marketing campaigns aimed at them:

“Evidence is now available to indicate that the 14-18 year old group is an increasing segment of the smoking population.  RJR-T must soon establish a successful new brand in this market if our position in the industry is to be maintained in the long term.”  (“Planned Assumptions and Forecast for the Period 1977-1986” for RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company, March 15, 1976)

“This young adult market, the 14-24 group,…represent[s] tomorrow’s cigarette business.  As this 14-24 age group matures, they will account for a key share of the total cigarette volume  for at least the next 25 years.” (Presentation from C.A. Tucker, Vice President of Marketing, to the Board of Directors of RJR Industries, September 30, 1974)

“To ensure increased and longer-term growth for the Camel Filter, the brand must increase its share penetration among the 14-24 age group which have a new set of more liberal values and which represent tomorrow’s cigarette business.” (1975 Memo to C.A. Tucker, Vice President for Marketing, RJR)

“Cherry Skoal is for somebody who likes the taste of candy, if you know what I’m saying.”  (former UST sales representative, quoted in a 1994 Wall Street Journal article on UST’s graduation strategy)

“Today’s teenager is tomorrow’s potential regular customer, and the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while still in their teens … The smoking patterns of teenagers are particularly important to Philip Morris.”  (1981 Philip Morris internal document)

Empirical Evidence

In addition to the industry’s own statements, there is compelling evidence that much of their advertising and promotion is directed at kids and that these efforts are very successful in recruiting new tobacco users to years of addiction:

• Eighty-six percent of kids who smoke  (but only about a third of adults) prefer Marlboro, Camel and Newport  the three most heavily advertised brands.  Marlboro, the most heavily advertised brand, controls almost 60 percent of the youth market but only about 25 percent of the adult market.²
• Each day, more than 3,000 kids become regular daily smokers.³  Since1991, past-month smoking has increased by one-third among eighth graders and tenth graders.  Smoking among high school seniors reached a 19-year high of 36.5 percent in 1997 and is currently at 35.1 percent.⁴
• Almost 90 percent of adults who have ever been regular smokers began smoking at or before age 18.⁵
• Thirty percent of kids (12 to 17 years old), both smokers and nonsmokers, own at least one tobacco promotional item, such as T-shirts, backpacks, and CD players.⁶
• Between 1989 and 1993, when advertising for the new Joe Camel campaign jumped from $27 million to $43 million, Camel’s share among youth increased by more than 50 percent, while its adult market share did not change at all.⁷
• A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that teens are more likely to be influenced to smoke by cigarette advertising than they are by peer pressure.⁸
• A 1996 study in the Journal of Marketing found that teenagers are three times as sensitive as adults to cigarette advertising.⁹
• A 1994 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association documented a rapid and unprecedented increase in the smoking initiation rate of adolescent girls subsequent to the launch in the late 1960’s of women’s cigarette brands like Virginia Slims.¹⁰
• A new (1998) longitudinal study of teenagers in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that tobacco industry promotional activities influenced previously non-susceptible non-smokers to become susceptible to or experiment with smoking.¹¹
• The development and marketing of “starter products” with such features as pouches and cherry flavoring have resulted in smokeless tobacco going from a product used primarily by older men to one for which young men comprise the largest portion of the market.¹²  Nearly sixteen percent of high school boys are current smokeless tobacco users.¹³

Advertising Experts

Even advertising industry executives believe that tobacco marketing influences kids, and a clear majority think this is done intentionally. Commissioned by the New York advertising firm of Shepardson, Stern, and Kaminsky in December of 1996, a telephone survey of 300 advertising industry executives in agencies with billings of more than $10 million revealed the following:

• 82 percent believe advertising for cigarettes and tobacco products reaches children and teenagers in significant numbers.
• 78 percent believe current tobacco advertising makes smoking more appealing or socially acceptable to kids.
• 71 percent believe that tobacco advertising changes behavior and increases smoking among kids.
• 59 percent believe that a GOAL of tobacco advertising is marketing cigarettes to teenagers who do not already smoke.
• 79 percent favor limitations on the style and placement of advertising for cigarette and tobacco products to minimize impact on children and teenagers.

1 Federal Trade Commission, “1998 Federal Trade Commission Report to Congress for 1996, Pursuant to the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act,” 1998.

2 CDC. “Changes in the Cigarette Brand Preference of Adolescent Smokers, U.S. 1989-1993,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, August, 1994.

3 Pierce, J.P., et al., “Trends in Cigarette Smoking in the United States: Projections to the Year 2000,”  JAMA, vol. 261, No. 1.  1989.

4 The Monitoring the Future Study, University of Michigan, 1997.

5 “Preventing Tobacco Use Among Young People,” A Report of The Surgeon General, 1994

6 Gallup International Institute, “Teen-age Attitudes and Behaviors Concerning Tobacco,” September, 1992.

7 CDC.  “Changes in the Cigarette Brand Preference of Adolescent Smokers, U.S. 1989-1993,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, August, 1994.

8 “Influence of Tobacco Marketing and Exposure to Smokers on Adolescent Susceptibility to Smoking,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute, October, 1995.

9 Pollay et al., “The Last Straw?  Cigarette Advertising and Realized Market Shares Among Youth and Adults,” Journal of Marketing, Vol. 60, No. 2.

10 Pierce, J., L. Lee, and E.R. Gilpin, "Smoking Initiation by Adolescent Girls, 1944 Through 1988," JAMA, Vol. 271, No. 8, pp. 608-611, 1994.

11 Pierce, J. et al, “ Tobacco Industry Promotion of Cigarettes and Adolescent Smoking,” JAMA, Vol. 279, No. 7, pp. 511-515, 1998.

12 CDC.  “Surveillance for Selected Tobacco-Use Behaviors  United States, 1900-1994.”  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report; November 18, 1994/Vol. 43/No. SS-3.

13 “Tobacco Use Among High School Students  United States, 1997”  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC, 3 April 1998.  Vol. 47/No. 12/229-233