Cigarette Ad Essay

Smoking Your Health Away

Puff, puff, puff . . . ummm the cool fresh taste of smoke in your lungs. Doesn’t that taste good??? Well, depending to whom you talk to, a variety of answers are possible. It is interesting though, that we, as a society, actually are still deceived into believing the false promises of happiness and bliss from smoking cigarettes. In our society people still deny and forget the fact that smoking causes lung cancer and directly kills over a million people every year, and that is just what tobacco advertisement departments would like to have you forget. Nowadays, advertising has become a major part of American society today. Everywhere you go there is advertising to be seen and absorbed by the consumer population. Nowadays, every company has a specific company inside the big business that’s sole purpose it to come up with interesting and new ways to promote its product. One industry that has been under fire for the types of advertising done during the last ten years is the tobacco industry. Major tobacco companies, specifically the R.J. Reynolds and Laramie corporations, spend millions of dollars each and every year, selectively advertising to older audiences in the Camel ad and to people who are socially active like the ones in the Newport ad, by intentionally using popular icons like Joe Camel and American ideals like the red, white, and blue coloring in the Camel ad, and by using human emotions like desire and popularity that everyone can relate to as found in the Newport ad, all in an attempt to sell a specific idea . . . cigarettes are pleasurable and enjoying to smoke.

In the advertisement put out by the R.J. Reynolds Company showcasing its Camel cigarettes, the attempt is made to seduce the customers into believing that it is hip and cool to smoke cigarettes. The first thing you notice in this particular advertisement is the large puffy red Afro donned by the man perfectly centered in the ad. He seems to be a throwback to the seventies when there was a collective feeling of freedom and invincibility enjoyed by the youth growing up in that era. It seem this man is living a surreal world full of bliss and happiness. His long smooth sideburns, small golden sunglasses tinted with a fresh color of purple, and attention-grabbing starred blue suede shirt with the leather pul...

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...sements have a very cunning way of anticipating and targeting what kind of person the company wants to carry on the tradition of smoking cigarettes. In the Camel ad, they concept is mixing the old with the new, while in the Newport ad the whole idea is having fun and being part of a larger group. Also, both of the ads use specific coloring to enhance the product. The American red, white, and blue in the Camel ad, and the trademark green in the Newport ad. It is also interesting to compare what the Camel ad has that the Newport ad does not. For one the Camel advertisement actually has a man smoking a cigarette in the ad in comparison to no cigarette shown in the Newport ad. Also, on the Camel ad it is noticeable that there is a surgeon generals warning on the bottom left corner of the ad, informing people on the risks of smoking cigarettes. This is not found anywhere on the ad for the Newport cigarettes and possibly lets the prospective consumer be at ease not seeing the awful risks of smoking and what it actually does to people. Finally, in comparing both of these advertisements, both of them are effective ads that clearly convey the intended ideas of both companies, respectively.