Release Date: November 9, 2009
Cigarette Packaging Influences Teens to Buy and Try
By Sharyn Alden, Contributing Writer
Health Behavior News Service
Plainer cigarette packages, perceived as boring or unattractive, would make smoking much less appealing to teens, according to a new Australian study.
Even before adolescents try smoking, they have preconceived ideas about what smoking is like. They often glean these images from the appeal of a cigarette pack. Colors, images, logos and font sizes all play a part in increasing teens’ susceptibility to future tobacco use.
“We found that when branding is progressively removed from a cigarette pack, adolescents not only perceive the packs to be less attractive, they associate the brand with people who have less favorable attributes. They also assume the cigarettes have a more negative taste,” said study co-author Melanie Wakefield, Ph.D.
Wakefield is director of the Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer of the Cancer Council Victoria. The study appears online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
The researchers asked parents of teens between age 14 and 17 if they would allow their children to participate in an online survey about cigarette packaging. Parents were told the survey results would help guide Australia’s tobacco control policies.
Using three popular Australian cigarette brands, the researchers looked at how adolescents perceived cigarette packs and what their expectations were about cigarette taste. The packs showed a gradual diminishment of brand information on the front and a progressively larger-sized health warning. Researchers randomly assigned each teen to rate one of 15 pack conditions.
“Although plain packs are perceived to be unattractive, we found that increasing the size of the health warning on the front further reduces the pack’s appeal,” Wakefield said. “This also includes teens who had already experienced smoking and are most likely to go on to a lifetime of regular smoking,”
“This is an important paper because it shows that graphical warning labels and plain packaging make a real difference in how adolescents perceive smoking and cigarettes,” said Stanton Glantz, Ph.D., director at the University of California-San Francisco Center for Tobacco Control Research.
“The study points to the need for the FDA to act quickly to impose strong, effective graphical warnings and plain packaging in the U.S. It also shows that we can expect the tobacco companies to fight effective action tooth and nail,” Glantz said.
Wakefield agreed: “If parents supported moves to strip as much branding off cigarette packs as possible, that one element of marketing that makes smoking attractive could be reduced.”
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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Reach the Health Behavior News Service, part of the Center for Advancing Health, at hbns-editor@cfah.org or (202) 387-2829.
Journal of Adolescent Health: Contact Tor Berg at (415) 502-1373 or tor.berg@ucsf.edu or visit www.jahonline.org
Germain DB, Wakefield MA, Durkin SJ. Adolescents’ perception of cigarette brand image: does plain packaging make a difference? J Adolesc Health online, 2009.
Supporting Documents
| Adolescents’ perception of cigarette brand image: does plain packaging make a difference? |
Article Discussion
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» chas 11/11/2009 9:38 AM Children do not buy packets of cigarettes for the pretty packaging, but for what is inside them. Nearly all children get their cigarettes from their friends or sellers of counterfiets. |
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» Helen 11/11/2009 6:35 PM I'd been smoking with ciggies off my mates for 3 years before I had the courage to go into a shop to buy them. You need to get into the real world. You haven't got a clue coming up with suggestions like this. Plain packaging will entice illegal trading and illegal tobacco. Is this what you want? Oh, and I thought you were interested in the health of citizens. Go back to the last prohibition era - history always repeats itself. Harmful substitutes (passed off as tobacco) will infiltrate the supply chain - guaranteed. Are you really interested in public health? I think not. Education programmes have reduced people taking up smoking for years upon years. Bans, prohibition and denormalisation has had the opposite effect - and they cost tax-payers money. |
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» Velocatus 12/10/2009 3:57 PM What an utter waste of time and resources and an indication of the calibre of 'scientists' associated with tobacco control today! All this shows is youths can like or dislike a packet design NOT that it will dissuade them from obtaining them in whatever packaging If a youth wants to try cigarettes it matters not what the packaging is - All past studies on the subject have shown no relationship between packaging and youth smoking. Put simply if they want to smoke - they WILL smoke regardless. This is merely 'denormalisation' of smokers - which will have the opposite effect. To top it all this 'study' is endorsed by Stanton Glantz!!! ffs. Check his pedigree out in more detail here; http://www.smokershistory.com/glantz.htm and here; http://www.velvetgloveironfist.com/index.php?page_id=64 |
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