Smoking Advertising Essay Example
One main goal in promoting a company is always to make sure that consumers are aware of their product or service and its value so that it will appear embellished. Tobacco companies show images of what life would be like if you smoke in a “positive” way. This persuades consumers to purchase their product and then use it. Advertisements glamorize tobacco usage to successfully capture their brand; however, this perception is the complete opposite of how cigarettes truly affect human life. In this anti-smoking, commercialized public service announcement (PSA), there is a deceptive presentation about cigarettes to viewers. This deception must be undone for humans to understand tobacco products habitual bringing up peer pressure, misconceptualized marketing, and potentially terminal respiratory issues.
Daily life includes a multitude of experiences that allow for peer pressure to prevail. Whether it is in the classroom, at soccer practice, or public function, one is constantly being surrounded and influenced by their peers. Peer pressure leads an individual to do something that they normally might not have, to feel accepted and valued by their “group” (Peer Pressure and Influence: Pre-Teens and Teenagers). This PSA evokes a strong sense of pressure in the viewer to engage in smoking when three people, all with separate stereotypes, affirm that smoking is beneficial in a different, unique way. The first person presented in this commercial is a cowboy, telling the viewer that “tough, hard-working people smoke” (Anti-Smoking Cigarette Commercial). Then, a rapper is depicted, stating that “[a person] will look cool” (Anti-Smoking Cigarette Commercial) if they smoke. Finally, a woman appears, proclaiming that smoking makes a person “independent, beautiful, and mysterious” (Anti-Smoking Cigarette Commercial). All three of these statements from the PSA pressure the viewer in a sense that if the one wants to be any of the qualities mentioned to “fit in,” then they must engage in the act of smoking, just as the characters portrayed to. An alternative is not offered to the viewer, and they are left with biased thoughts about how smoking positively influences an individual.
In addition to the PSA instilling peer pressure in the viewer, it also misconceptualized tobacco products as a whole. The three characters previously mentioned, each emphatically offers their opinion on how the act of smoking can be a positive thing. What they fail to mention are the numerous disadvantages that come from smoking. One of the many disadvantages of smoking is that it not only affects the user’s health, but also the health of those around the user, such as friends and loved ones. In this commercial, only smokers' opinions are given, but the audience's perception would be altered if the people in the commercial were non-smoking bystanders. This would give the audience a more realistic perception of how smoking negatively permeates relationships other people have with smokers. Namely, secondhand smoke is the result of a burning cigarette and the actual smoke breathed out by a smoker being taken in by someone close by. When those nearby inhale in secondhand smoke, it can lead to asthma attacks, respiratory infections, and even the development of lung cancer– even though the bystander is not smoking! It is especially dangerous if infants or younger children breathe in these fumes because their bodies are not mature enough to fight off the toxins from a cigarette. Even if one may not necessarily care about their health, it is impactful to understand how harmful cigarettes can be to others to go against the deceptive appearance of smoking as a good thing. Knowledge about the sobering consequences of smoking will allow an individual to watch this PSA and hopefully not engage in the act because they know it is being falsely advertised.
Ultimately, tobacco products lead to respiratory issues in an individual. The toxins in cigarette smoke can “interfere with the structure and function of the respiratory tract” (Jiang), altering the natural breathing process that occurs in the human body. This explains why smokers are more likely to develop respiratory issues than non-smokers would. For example, in the final ten seconds of this commercial, an elderly man who is experiencing the repercussions of smoking warns viewers of his potentially fatal scenario. He tells the viewer “but the reality is, that you can end up looking like this” (Anti-Smoking Cigarette Commercial). Upper respiratory issues affect one’s whole airway or any part of it, so the raspy sound of the old man’s voice and the way that he can barely speak showcases the detrimental consequences smoking can bring about. Young people do not understand the capacity of how certain things they do in their daily life can negatively affect them when they are much older, which is ironic since the three characters in this commercial who influence the viewer to smoke all appear younger. Quitting as soon as possible reduces a smoker’s risk of ending up like this patient in fifty years.
Some teenagers may say smoking cigarettes makes you look cool. In this PSA, the rapper depicted offers the viewer an ideology that partaking in this activity of smoking will give one the same cool suaveness he projects. For a lot of young adults, when their parents tell them not to do something, it makes them want to do it even more. Many parents make their kids aware that smoking is bad for them and they should not, or are not allowed to do it. This instills a rebellious mindset within teenagers, making them feel cooler when they do smoke a few cigarettes, knowing they are not supposed to. However, what young people fail to realize is that as far as health goes, smoking really is not cool. The reality is that if one starts and continues to smoke, one could end up in the same wheelchair as the patient shown at the end of the PSA.
Ultimately, there is no safe way to smoke, and this deception that smoking is a good thing is solely for the tobacco company to acquire capital, rather than benefit the user in any capacity. If anything, the company itself knows that cigarettes are harmful to the human body, but promotes their product in other positive ways by making sure not to address health concerns. Deception is dirty, and a person’s lungs will be too if they do not educate themselves on the reality of this issue. It is pertinent to “undo [this] deception” (Anti-Smoking Cigarette Commercial) and enlighten others about how tobacco products actually affect an individual.
