As has been said in these articles, it is very, very hard to simply quit smoking. This is because the smoker has built a Psychological Smoking Mechanism from an early age and reinforces it with every cigarette. You see, it takes great WILL POWER to IGET Hot Flavours each cigarette. The WILL POWER is generated by the Psychological Smoking Mechanism which is maintained by beliefs.
They consist of Why I Started Smoking and Why I Continue to Smoke beliefs. Both of these categories of beliefs support each other and need to be explored extensively. In this article we will look at how advertising helps to shape and strengthen beliefs that smoking is a good thing, to induce young people to smoke.
If you are like me, you grew up in the “television generation.” This was the time when the majority of the television programs were sponsored by the tobacco companies. The television era of cigarette advertising ended January 2, 1971 but it continued in print and other forms of advertising until the present time.
When a show was sponsored by a cigarette company, they usually used it to promote a specific brand. They also made certain that they had well known celebrities promote the product. Since the majority of programs were sponsored by tobacco companies, some of the best loved shows on TV were promoting cigarette smoking!
As a child, one of my favorite shows was the Jack Benny show. Probably one of the funniest comedians ever. He was a pioneer in television as he was in radio. For many years, his TV program was sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes made by the American Tobacco Company.
Remember, funny programs appealed to children and the advertising was planting seeds of programming. Let’s review a particular episode of The Jack Benny Program. This program aired October 25, 1953 and was typical of all the early shows. The guest star was Humphrey Bogart, a mega-star of the time having starred in such classics as The Maltese Falcon and The African Queen. He won an Oscar for his role in The African Queen.
