Cigarette Advertisements in the 1950's

In the middle of the twentieth century, mostly during the 1950’s and the 1960’s, smoking was more prevalent and smoking advertisements were more common as well. In the 1950’s, people didn’t know that smoking caused lung cancer and various deadly diseases. One technique that cigarette advertisements in the 1950s advertised their product was to use the doctor as a spokesperson and say their cigarette was the “doctor’s preference.” Doctors (the image of health) could be associated with cigarettes because people did not consider cigarettes unhealthy. One example of a cigarette company that used this advertising technique in the 1950’s was Camel. Camel’s advertisement’s use of the doctor as a spokesperson and doctor preference, choice of images, simple English, weasel words, an analogy, parallelism, and the needs it claims to satisfy help promote the product as a “healthy” cigarette.

Camel’s advertisement aims to sell their product to people who currently smoke, but are not currently smoking Camels cigarettes. However, the advertisement also appeals to nonsmokers who are interested in smoking. However, the ad does not appeal to nonsmokers who are uninterested in smoking because there is nothing in Camel’s advertisement that promotes smoking in general, it says that Camels cigarettes are preferred by doctors. The target audience is older children and adults (whoever smokes). There is no price listed on the advertisement so it appeals any income level. This advertisement aims at both genders because the ad contains a picture of a male smoking and a female smoking. The ad targets white people more than other demographics because both people pictured are white. All education levels are in the target audience because the ad does not ap...

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...Doctors promote healthy habits and in this ad the doctor is promoting Camels cigarettes. Therefore, the ad is associating their cigarette with health even though the advertisement doesn’t say that the cigarette is healthy.

Overall, Camel’s advertisement is very effective at selling its product. The colors in the ad stand out and the images of people smiling promote a better product. Using the fact that “more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette brand” is the ads most effective advertising technique because people look up to the doctor. The language that describes the doctor helps promote the doctor and since the doctor is promoting the product, it helps promote the product. Since the target audience is smokers or people considering starting to smoke who trust in doctors, the ad Camels produced is effective at reaching the audience they wanted to reach.