We don’t see much of the
Marlboro Man anymore, but what about the "Virginia Slims"
woman?
Everybody knows what happened
to him – or them, two of whom died from lung cancer.
She, however, was never quite
as iconic. But that doesn’t mean the tobacco companies don’t
have a soft spot for women, especially the young ones,
according to a new report released Wednesday.
Issued by the Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Kids, the report alleges tobacco companies are
trying to cultivate a generation of new users with fruity
flavored cigarettes and marketing campaigns that target
young people, including young women and girls.
In particular, the report
takes issue with a recent R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
campaign that it says is clearly designed to attract girls
with hot pink product packaging, ladies-only nights at clubs
and cutesy party giveaway bags containing cigarettes,
berry-flavored lip gloss and cell phone "bling."
David Howard, spokesman for
the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, said the Camel No. 9
marketing campaign is not about reaching young people. There
are 20 million adult women smokers, Howard said, and 19
million of them smoke some brand other than Camel.
Health organizations involved
with the report, however, insist the ads cross the line
against marketing tobacco products to youth. The report was
released in collaboration with the American Lung
Association, American Cancer Society and American Heart
Association.
"It seems pretty clear that
the ads were designed to appeal to young girls and
20-somethings," said Ellen Vargyus, counsel for the American
Legacy Foundation, an anti-smoking organization. "From
[tobacco companies’] point of view, it’s sound marketing to
do that. We know that 80 percent of smokers start before
they’re 18."
"In the days when tobacco
companies were not so careful about what they said they used
to call teens ‘replacement smokers,’" Vargyus said.
According to the American
Heart Association, more than 178,000 women die from
smoking-related diseases in a year. While death from uterine
and stomach cancer has decreased in the last 70 years, lung
cancer has surged among women, with an increase in incidence
of almost 400 percent in the last 20 years.
The Camel No. 9 campaign
caused quite a stir last fall. A group of 40 U.S. House
members sent letters to 11 magazines calling on them to stop
carrying the ads. The magazines, and their parent companies
after them, either did not respond or refused.
If the goal of the ads was to
get cigarettes in the hands of young women and girls,
tobacco companies chose the right style and place, said
Rosemarie Conforti, a professor of media literacy and
education at Southern Connecticut State University.
"In the age of age aspiration,
there are many tween girls who are reading these magazines
because they want to be older," Conforti said. "Magazines,
and they know this, are absolutely the manual on how to be a
young woman."
Conforti said the fashion
layout especially is the kind of guide girls love. It tells
you how to be sophisticated and fashion-forward in three
simple steps, she said, and it shows you the lifestyle that
goes along with it through the cigarette ad on the right.
"Obviously, the fourth implied
step is: ‘And smoke,’" Conforti said.
As these kinds of ads define
what it means to be a woman, Conforti said, they also
establish a benchmark against which girls and women measure
themselves, having a cumulative impact that is more about
long-term effects on lifestyle and less about one particular
product.
R.J. Reynolds has said it will
not advertise in print magazines in 2008. The Camel No. 9
campaign, however, continues online and through other
promotional materials that are given away at bar parties.
"The innocence mixed with the
sophistication – the roses and the pink mixed with the black
-- it’s the two sides that every girl wants to be," Conforti
said. "Sweet and sexy, sweet and sexy, that’s what women
hear over and over again. You can either be an angel or a
whore, and we don’t have a lot of choices for what’s right
down the middle."
