So Why do People Smoke?

Now obviously there are different answers to this question for different people. I thought I would compile a list of positives and negatives to see and compare what the advantages and disatvantages of smoking are. This list has been created through research for previous blogs, interviews and personal knowledge. Please note that there are more positives and negatives that may have not been included.

Positives:

• Relieves stress, anxiety, paranoia and depression
• Encourages weight loss
• Sociable (e.g. having a 'cigarette break' at work)
• Positive effect on short-term memory
• Shortens response time
• Reduces the risk of Alzheimer's, Senile Demetia and Parkinson's disease
• Nicotine provides smokers with a pleasant feeling

Negatives:

• Causes bad breath
• Can cause the yellowing of teeth and fingernails
• Makes breathing more difficult
• Can cause cancers
• Can deminish one's sense of taste and smell
• Can increase migraines
• It is addictive - one becomes dependant on cigarettes
• Increases the chance of various illnesses such as lung diseases or heart attacks - not just cancers
• Decreases your years of life
• Cigarettes pollute our environment
• Those around are forced to suffer the same negative effects - second-hand/passive smoking
• and most importantly: can result in death

Looking at the above lists, it is evident that the negatives outweigh the positives. This is not only by numbers but also by significance. What I mean by this is that being sociable is not as significant as having difficulty breathing. A common response to these negatives is that it is not definant - note how most listed under negatives being with 'can' rather than 'does'.

So if the negatives are so dramatic, it just doesn't seem to make sense. Why do people smoke?!

References:


- Fleischer, G. 2010, 'The Real Positives of Smoking', http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6863535052&topic=13289, Accessed 17/10/2010

- Ritzman, K. 2005, 'Smoking cigarettes has short-term health benefits', http://media.www.thetriangle.org/media/storage/paper689/news/2005/11/18/SciTech/Smoking.Cigarettes.Has.ShortTerm.Health.Benefits-1109656.shtml, Accessed 17/10/2010

- Ygoy, 2008, 'Cigarette Smoking Pros and Cons', http://smoking.ygoy.com/2010/03/09/cigarette-smoking-pros-and-cons/, Accessed 17/10/2010

If people don't care about their health...

Coming from more of a marketing background in my studies, I began thinking about the current success of anti-smoking campaigns and how to boost it. Now most ads focus more on the damages smoking causes to health (see previous post). Having asked a few smokers, I found that people aren't concerned about their health (see previous posts). Then what would they be concerned with? I came up with other potential issues that could answer this:

• image/appearance
• pollution
• family's health

As mentioned in my previous post, smoking is considered sexy. Actors and actresses promoted it in earlier years and so the public followed. What they weren't told was that smoking also caused the yellowing of teeth and nails, caused rinkles, and created bad breath. If image is what smokers are concentrating on then maybe advertise how smoking makes one appear disgusting. This is touched upon in ads such as the mouth cancer ad but as found through my interviews, most smokers think that it will never happen to them. Bad breath, rinkles, and yellowing of teeth and nails happens to ALL smokers.

Original Image: http://images-cdn01.associatedcontent.com/image/A2062/20620/300_20620.jpg
[changes have been made]


Smoking doesn't just effect the smoker. As found in my previous post, smoking harms the envioronment and wildlife also. When interviewing smokers, it was found that many do actually care for the environment and never really considered the damages smoking could cause to the earth. Raising awareness about such issues would not only help the environment but maybe even turn people off smoking.

Original Image: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/images/bird-photography.jpg
[changes have been made]



If one doesn't care about themself, then who would they care about? Their family. When one smokes, the people around have no choice but to breathe their smoke in - Passive smoking. Some ads have already begun concentrating on this (see previous post). By showing a smoker's child in hospital due to passive smoking, this triggers the smoker in more of an emotional way. They may not care about themself but they do care about their family.

Original Image: http://www.eyesontutorials.com/images/PhotoEffects/Sigma/tut47_TheLittleFairy/1.jpg
[changes have been made]

If ads were more varied, covering several issues rather then just focussing on the damage of health, maybe the quit response would reach a wider audience?

Would you hand your kid a cigarette?

Parents are very influencial on their children (Green et al, 1991, p.745). From personal experiences I can somewhat relate this to smoking - As a little girl I use to pretend my lollypop-stick was a cigarette when acting as a lady, as my Mum. Some of the people interviewed also agreed that their parents did contribute to their starting of smoking, especially mothers. Graham states that mothers' play a powerful influence on childrens' smoking behaviour (1987, p.47). If smoking is so bad on health, why would a mother want their child smoking? They don't, as mentioned by smoking mothers who participated in interviews. Then if a parent smoking influences a child to smoke, does it not make sense to quit? Although irrelevant to smoking, I find that the concept of the advertisement below would be useful if applied in a anti-smoking campaign. Here ads could better demonstrate the impact smoking has on their children.




Another issue is passive smoking. Passive smoking dramatically impacts childrens' health (Knight et al, 1996, p.446). Quitline has started focussing on this issue (see image below). By focussing on the children and family, rather than on the smoker, anti-smoking commercials could better reach parent smokers.

                                           

Image: http://www.who.int/tobacco/healthwarningsdatabase/tobacco_medium_australia_children_02_b_en/en/index.html
References:
- Graham, H. 1987, 'Women's smoking and family health' in Social Science & Medicine, Vol.25, No., pp.47-56, Accessed 30/09/2010, http://www.sciencedirect.com/
- Green, G., Macintyre, S., West, P. & Ecob, R. 1991, 'Like parent like child? Associations between drinking and smoking behaviour of parents and their children' in British Journal of Addiction, Vol.86, No.6, pp.745-758, Accessed 30/09/2010, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
- Knight, J.M., Eliopoulos, C., Klein, J., Greenwald, M. & Koren, G. 1996,'Passive Smoking in Children' in Chest, Vol.109, No.2, pp.446-450, Accessed 30/09/2010, http://chestjournal.chestpubs.org/

Butts Everywhere!

Once one finishes their smoke, where does the butt go? If there is no ashtray, the common answer is on the ground. This is littering. But why would you care? What I find ironic is that many smokers do 'care' for the environment (Taylor-Cassan, 2007). Yet I find so many cigarette buds lying around - with many not even realising the effects this has to our earth (Taylor-Cassan, 2007).


Image: http://righthandmarketingmanagement.com/righthandmarketingandmanagement1.aspx

Having said this, it does not mean that ALL smokers do this. Someone I know, for example, has bought a portable ash tray, similar to the one pictured below, which she empties when she finds a bin.


Image: http://www.chinatraderonline.com/Lighters-Smoking-Accessories/Ashtrays/Handy-Ashtray/Portable-Ashtray-075430312/

So what damage do these butts cause? Not only to they damage the appearance of the environment, but the chemicals used in cigarettes can dramatically harm wildlife (Polito, 2010). Cigarettes are not biodegradable and so are left lying around damaging the environment for as much as fifteen years (Polito, 2010).

So maybe anti-smoking campaigns should raise awareness about the effects smoking has to the environment?



References:

- Polito, J.R. 2010, Cigarette Butts, Accessed 15/09/2010, http://whyquit.com/whyquit/a_butts.html
- Taylor-Cassan, J. 2007, How Smoking Affects our Environment, Accessed 25/09/2010, http://www.aboutmyplanet.com/environment/smoking-affects/

Smoking is Sexy

Smoking in films has dramatically changed over the years (O’Shaughnessy & Stadler, 2005, p.51). During the 1950s, cigarette product placement in films worked as an extra marketing technique to encourage smoking. Actresses such as Audrey Hepburn (see image below) were commonly found smoking in films. Infact, when I was searching for images of her, there were many with her holding a cigarette. This implies that smoking is sexy. Average people look up to celebrities and follow their actions in hope to be more like them (Fraser & Brown, 2002, p.183). This means that when people see actors/actresses smoking in films, they want to smoke too. When the harmful effects were learned, such marketing techniques were removed from the film industry, with actors and actresses only smoking in films if it is part of their character.

Image: Aydrey Hepburn http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LRG/16/1654/5KJGD00Z/audrey-hepburn.jpg

Although product placement has decreased, actors/actesses smoking in films still influence viewers, especially young adolescence (Distefan et al, 2004, p.1239). I interviewed a couple of teenage smokers and they agreed that movie stars may have had an impact on them smoking.

Maybe smoking should be stripped from the media?

References:

- Distefan, J.M., Pierce, J.P. & Gilpin, E.A. 2004, 'Do Favourite Movie Stars Influence Adolescent Smoking Initiation?' in American Journal of Public Health, Vol.94, No.7, pp.1239-1244, Accessed 19/09/2010, http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/7/1239 

- Fraser, B.P. & Brown, W.J. 2002, 'Media, celebrities, and social influece: Identification with Elvis Presley' in Mass Communication and Society, Vol.5, No.2, pp.183-206, Accessed 19/09/2010, informaworld.com 

- O’Shaughnessy, M. & Stadler, J. 2005, ‘Defining the Media’ in Media and Society: An Introduction, Vol. 3, pp. 51-54

'Ads Don't Phase Me'

Due to the commercial world we live in, advertising has become a less effective source. The audience is 'active', being more aware of the motives behind advertising (Livingstone, 1999, p.64).

Having interviewed a current smoker regarding the Everybody Knows campaign (see previous post), I came to realise that the commercial nature of anti-smoking campaigns can damage perceptions of companies such as Quit Victoria. Instead of being seen as helpful, such companies may be considered as profit-focussed or un-caring.

Another issue facing anti-smoking campaigns is that the audience is in control. By this I mean that the viewer can change the channel during the ad break. The interviewee said that the images of the campaign didn't phase them because they chose not to watch.

This means that there is a portion of the smoking population that the anti-smoking campaigns don't even reach!



References:
- Livingstone, S. 1999, 'New Media, New Audiences?' in New Media & Society, Vol.1, No.59, pp.59-66, Accessed 05/09/2010, http://nms.sagepub.com/

Everybody Knows

So I thought I'd start off with my favourite Anti-Smoking Campaign - perhaps the inspiration to this blog.





Everybody knows the damage smoking causes, yet people continue to do it. Personally I like this campaign because it combines several previous campaigns. It lists all the different illnesses that are caused by smoking using the terms 'everybody knows' to accentuate the great amount that suffer from smoking addictions and illnesses (Cancer Institute NSW, 2010). It aims to motivate smokers to quit immediately (Mitchell, 2009, p.4).

On YouTube, the ad has generated a great response (47501 views for this particular clip). What I found interesting was that YouTube considered the campaign to be somewhat 'inappropriate' being flagged by YouTube users. Infact users are required to indicate whether they're over the age of 18.

This causes me to question the impact of the ad - shouldn't it be easily accessible due to the seriousness of the circumstances? 'Appropriateness' has been a significant issue with smoking campaigns. Images are considered 'graphic' and 'disturbing' which could in some ways harm non-smokers - e.g. children (Belch et al, 2009, p.84). One could argue that instead of 'harming' children, such ads inform and scare children away from smoking, resulting in a positive response. I, for one, would never touch a cigarette because I KNOW the damages it causes thanks to the ads.

Overall the campaign was 'successful' as it was able to increase quitting requests (Mitchell, 2009, p.6). Being displayed on television and the radio, it was able to successfully reach a wide audience (Mictchell, 2009, p.5).

How has it impacted you?

References:

- Belch, Belch, Kerr & Powell, 2009, Advertising and Promotion, McGraw-Hill Australia, Australia
- Cancer Insitute NSW, 2010, Everybody Knows Campaign, Accessed 29/08/2010, http://www.cancerinstitute.org.au/cancer_inst/campaigns/everybodyknows.html
- Mitchell, G. 2009, 'Everybody Knows', Campaign Report, pp. 1-13, Accessed 29/08/2010, http://www.quittas.org.au/files/everybodyknows/everybodyknows_campaign_report.pdf