Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

A pleasure to meet you the other day.

Remember this about academic integrity (a point I might not have made sufficiently clearly at the seminar) one always has to face up to one's daemons and one's critics.  Doing so makes one stronger.

Then you go to the pub.  Good luck with your studies.  If we can give you any help at MY University, let us know - the moderators have my emial or you can get it from the Bar Association's website.

Yours aye,

Malcolm

Jill Burdett: "I believe that a smarter and more potent approach would be to address the issue of addiction instead of inspiring fear, shame and guilt in our smokers, which only leads to an increased desire to smoke to supress these feelings."

What would be the main research evidence in support of either idea (a) that 'shock' tactics make people give up smoking or (b) that 'shock' tactics make people go into denial about smoking?

Also, are these distinct from shock tactics that might prevent people from starting smoking?

Personally, I don't know why the government doesn't just ban the manufacture and sale of tobacco products.

If people want to smoke, let them grow their own tobacco. How much could they grow in their own back yards, for cryng out loud?

We spend millions each year trying to detect comparatively small volumes of narcotis. So, how had can it be to detect conatiner loads of tobacco coming through our airports and harbours?

Just think how much tobacco any individual smoker consumes. Multiply that by the number of smokers. We're talking mountains of the stuff each year.

I mean, for God's sake, how cowardly are our governments?

Nicotine is an addictive substance and smokers use it because they are addicted to it, not because they don't know it is potentially fatal. People still smoke crack and inject heroin on a daily basis, against their own will, aware that the consequences are either death, imprisonment or at the least, disease and degredation. 

Although effective, the heroin ads in the late 80's and early 90's and the Grim Reaper ads for HIV could have been more so, just like todays anti smoking ads. I believe that a smarter and more potent approach would be to address the issue of addiction instead of inspiring fear, shame and guilt in our smokers, which only leads to an increased desire to smoke to supress these feelings. 

I feel that the shock tactics used in the anti-tobacco advertisements would work pretty well.  After all, I've seen some pretty shocking advertisements back home in Singapore.  It has to be graphic to induce a shock factor amongst would-be smokers and maybe those pretty less hardcore ones.  But it would probably take more than just a few ads to actually dissuade people to give up smoking I guess.   

I thought this piece was OK.  I really wish that there were direct souces you could attribute your quotes.  Perhaps you could have interviewed a smoker or someone who is the advertising line or a sociologist.  This will actually bring more depth to the article. 

My life or my appetite? If I only can keep one of them, the answer would obviously be my life. Don’t get me wrong; I have watched that Anti-smoking advertisement too. Indeed, it is not merely unpleasant; it is disgusting and made me feel sick.

On the other hand wouldn’t we agree that it’s very effective? Just imagine someone lighting up his or her cigarette while watching this. As a student from China, I know how bad the smoking problem is.

 If the Chinese government had made as much effort as the Australian government, the number of smokers in China would doubtlessly go down. It is better to look at something that makes you feel sick than really get sick. Anti-smoking campaigns should be carried on for the good of the whole society. 

Richard:  I remember Chinese cigarettes (the non-Western labels) being comparatively very inexpensive.  Is that still the case, Zhang Xiaojia?

Jenny Hume: "Eliot, you mean the  anyhow..have a Winfield ad done by Paul Hogan does not top the list?"

Oh, they were good. But an ad that doesn't say anything? That's special.

A cowboy galloping over the prairies to the theme from The Magnificent Seven. In the end, that's all they had to do.

 Talking about ads, here's some from 1967. Including a Marlboro commerical (actually quite verbose by contrast to some).

Does anyone recognise ther peformer in the Bold detergent commercial? That ad was so bad, I nearly reached for a cigarette.

The Phillip Morris Company, which made Alpine, actually did a self parody television commercial in 1967 on the 'Girl-boy-hill-tree' theme.

The two most successful cigarette product launches in history were the Marlboro and Alpine brands.

They used very little content, and very evocative imagery.

Marlboro was launched with a nationwide series of newspaper spreads with images of iconic, almost butch, male stereotypes (a cowboy, a sailor and a New York City cabbie), and the legend: "Filter, Flavour, Flip Top Box."

The filter was a response to increasing public concerns about the harmful effects of smoking, the 'flavour' pitch was to allay concerns that the filter would reduce taste. The flip-top-box was an innovation at the time.

The butch imagery was to counter concerns that filters were effeminate. And later, only the cowboy image was used, typically with no words at all other than the brand name.

The equivalent female brand was Alpine, essentially just Marlboro with a white filter tip, mentholated and the 'M' Marlboro logo on the pack slightly changed to look like an alpine peak. Green was substituted for red.

The Alpine brand was launched also with a nationwide series of newspaper spreads showing just one image: a beautiful young woman leading, by the hand, a young man toward a spreading tree at the top of a grassy, wild-flower dotted hill.

The Alpine slogan was: "Come to where the freshness is." Nothing else.

A good book about all this is the Pulitzer Prize winning study by Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris.

Evocative images and the promise of pleasure trump 'information' every time when it comes to motivation.

Brochures and pamphlets are just 'information' mostly, high in content and low in format. You have already to be quite motivated to read them.

Hi Christel, interesting article. It's well researched and a definite conversation starter!

I wonder though, do shock tactics still work or have we become desensitised to graphic imagery on TV? Hit shows like Nip/Tuck, ER, House, Bones, NCIS and others, which heartily depict scenes of guts, gore and sores, are made prime-time viewing. Yet they're merely around to entertain, so i reckon it's fair play to use similar scenes to educate.

As a smoker, I have to agree with Jenny and Eliot in that the ads are probably most successful in deterring potential smokers (teenagers, in particular) from taking up the habit than putting off existing offenders (especially since the delightful campaign is now the face of every cigarette pack.)

Jillian, I couldn't agree more - the ads only serve as a reminder that maybe it's time I had a smoke again too. Lame but true.

However, I do understand the need to air the ads after the Watershed. Few 7 year-olds I know are thinking of taking up the nasty habit and so could probably be spared the inevitable nightmares of being chased by bleeding brains and gangrenous feet.

Christel, I think those ads are a definite turm off over dinner. However, advertising against smoking should continue in my opinion as kids are easily influenced by almost anything so maybe it will stop some of them starting up for the first time.

The grim reaper ads in this country apparently had a significant benefit in creating awareness about HIV/Aids and helping reduce the incidence in Australia.

I never took up smoking thankfully - tried one as a teenager and it made me sick, again thankfully, as I never tried it again. If I did smoke those ads would be a big incentive for me to stop. Smoking basically killed my father through heart attack. I prayed every single night from the time I was tiny and well into adulthood that he would give up. It was a nightly ritual, so much so that even now I find myself adding it in automatically to my request list for the Almighty - yet the old man has been dead some twenty years.

Yes Richard, if your daughter notices and worries, then she probably worries a lot more than you might realize. When do you have time to smoke anyway?

Malcolm B. Duncan:  huius, huius, huius.

A case of red is too much at one sitting.  Take my word.

Clearly a popular topic, Christel, as I have nearly forgotten what I wanted to say to you after reading all the reply postings!

I agree generally with your piece, though I have no knowledge of actual statistics of the effects of the television campaigns. However, being an ex-smoker I can certainly say that it wasn't the advertisements that brought about my giving up. In fact, the advertisements simply reminded me that I hadn't had a ciggie in a while at which point I would retreat outside to partake.

To me it is simple. Ban them altogether. Stopping smoking in practically all public places is what forced me to give up. It was just too difficult to smoke and when you did you were made to feel like a complete social outcast.

I think your article is well researched. Your use of statistics is good and valid.

One of the upsides, though, of running the television commercials to an audience greater than those who smoke is that the non-smokers and worse still, reformed smokers, can harass the current smokers into quitting!

I don't think there is anything I haven't smoked at some time or another. Tobacco was the most unpleasant (to start with) yet the one that gets you addicted the quickest. Tobacco works immediately and has an extremely short half life; as such the user will return for top ups regularly.

Nicotine addiction is only half the problem where tobacco is concerned for nicotine is delivered to the blood stream by smoking. The act of inhaling smoke is for many equally addictive as the drug and very much part of the ritual. Beware of rituals - many are deadly or can be.

Personally I reckon you have to be a mug to smoke tobacco but it is easy to understand the addiction. Personally my favourite smoke is Kashmir hashish but I haven't seen any for donkeys nor do I care. But it is a lovely smoke as well as all the other stuff that goes with it. Yep you gotta be a mug to smoke but who cares - now where was that gong, er bong.

Christel, your piece is interesting. I am not a native Australian, but similar "anti-smoking" ads are run in the US.

In fact, in the US they have traveling bilboards i.e. semi-trucks with disgusting images on the side, among many other things, that you see while going about your daily business that intrude into your life without permission.

After reading your article, I too wondered if the decline in smoking was directly corellated with these ads, or if there is a third party invovled. They could have a spurious relationship with other confounding factors (lurking variables).

Could it be said that the media is the best way to target a certain group? I think that is why they use television ads instead of pamphlets, or other forms of less persuasive media. More people watch television than listen to the radio, etc.

Many other ads on television are not mediated for people who dont want to watch them. It all runs in the area of commercials, ads, and public service announcements. There are some pretty disturbing public service announcements on Australian television for anti spousal / child abuse and things of that nature, that are extremely graphic. I hate watching them, but I do suppose it gets awareness out there to the most people possible. Television is the number one way to reach a mass audience; whether everyone is in a specific grouping or not, they are targeted.

On another note - I know how hard it is as a non-native English speaker to write a scholarly piece or article. (I lived and studied in Mexico for a couple of months and was constantly in trouble with my grammar.) It does help to have a native English speaker look over your work. Please don't take that in a negative way. I just mean to lend some advice. And I am merely commenting on Malcolm's comment to you. I think you have to try and study overseas before you fully understand how hard it is. Kudos to those who do!

I think one thing that could help your argument would be to add links to the sites where you found the facts you gave. Some sort of credibility. Or, maybe a link to these commercials, if possible. I dont have cable, but I would like to see what one of the commercials look like, just out of curiosity.

Other than those small things, I thought your article was interesting and relevant.

Cheers.

Smoking is certainly bad for health. However, it is one among many - and the others get little or no attention. Toxic household sprays, for one.

Charles Waterstreet, in his autobiogs, describes very accurately the world of his and my childhood, in which all public transport and many restaurants were a fug of smoke, many parents smoked, teachers could and did smoke in the classroom: smoking was ubiquitous. In England, of course, one could smoke in the cinema and theatre. How did any of us survive? Why has the incidence of respiratory diseases, such as asthma, increased?

The world is a more toxic place, I expect. Take heart, Alan, from the once "oldest woman in the world", who died in her 120s in 2007? 2006?

She gave up smoking when she was 115.

There is a notice on the bar in my snuggery that says: "Please feel free to smoke." Hear hear.

Not only is this piece poorly written (not just typos but poor grammar), it is also inaccurate. The 15+ classification does not mean what is reported in this article.   The author should check her facts before putting her foot in them.

Fiona: Your afternoon's Learing has obviously put you in a better than normal mood, Dr Duncan.

Just to set the record straight, this article has been written by me (Christel van Hoof) and not by Annabella Marquis.

Fiona: Abject apologies, Christel. Your byline, and your name in the two comments already published, have been corrected. Even editors nod, it seems.

"The smoking rate in NSW has dropped from 24% to around 18% in the last ten years, that’s around 290,000 less smokers today than in 1997,” Ms Firth said."

That raises a lot of questions. It's a non sequitur to immediately attribute this decline in NSW-wide average smoking rates to "the hard hitting TV commercials" of the last decade.

I mean, what has the smoking uptake rate been over that time? Are people actually giving up smoking? Or are fewer people taking up smoking?

And are either of these outcomes demonstrably a result of the sorts of commercials Ms Firth is speaking of?

Or are people giving up, or otherwise not taking up the habit for entirely different reasons, unrelated directly to the commercials?

You'd need to find that out.

Christel: "You must have lived underground for the past decade not to know that smoking is bad for you and I therefore wonder if these kinds of commercials are necessary to grab smokers’ attention."

Perhaps you are equating 'awareness' with 'motivation' there.

If the commercials are effective (though that remains to be demonstrated as far as I can see), it is presumably not because they make people aware of the connection between smoking and disease, but rather the vivid representations of the disease motivate people to act on their awareness.

Like, I "knew" long before i gave up smoking that it was "bad for me", but I needed a specific set of circumstances to actually motivate me to give up smoking. I think that's typically true for lots of people.

Christel: "According to the government, about 15 % of the Australians smoke. Based on the assumption that the TV audience represents the average Australian, the smoke commercial only applies to 1 out of 7 viewers."

Alternatively, I guess it could be argued that the graphic representations also work to prevent those who presently don't smoke from taking up the habit in the first place. In which case, the current audience segmentation and message positioning may be appropriate.

In other words, depending on how the commercials actually work with the audience, it may be that the appropriate audience segment for the message is indeed the 85 per cent of the population who don't already smoke (if the commercials are preventative), as opposed to the 15 per cent who do smoke (if the commercials are intended to make smokers give up).

That makes more sense to me, because the media tend to be better at motivating people to make simple, easy changes in their behaviour.

Like it would be easier to use the media to prevent people from taking up smoking than giving up cigarettes once they are addicted.

The graphic representations of diseases on the cigarette packets themselves, along with health warnings, are obviously very specifically segmented (narrowcast) to those who already smoke.

But perhaps the broadcast strategy, television, is intended to preventative rather than remedial.

As I said, that makes more sense to me, because the media tends to be better at motivating people to make simple, easy changes in their behaviour.

People don't, for example, eat ice-cream because it's advertised. They eat ice-cream because it's delicious.

Advertising ice-cream only makes sense if you want ice-cream consumers to change ice-cream brands or perform some other comparatively simple behaviour change. Buy my ice-cream not his ice-cream. Eat ice-cream at home, not at a restaurant. That sort of simple change in behaviour.

Like, if you'd never seen ice-cream, or you came from a lactose intolerant population that could only eat yoghurt, but not ice-cream or other dairy products (Arabic or Chinese cultural background for example), then advertising alone wouldn't make you eat ice-cream.

And I'm pretty sure that no amount of advertising would stop people from wanting to eat ice-cream if it gave them pleasure unless you could convincingly persuade them it would kill them in the short run.

You might need some pretty compelling images to do that.

Now, imagine ice-cream was also addictive and pleasurable, like cigarettes.

Can you see the problem that would present? Easier to prevent than cure in those circumstances.

Christel van Hoof, as a smoker for 60 years I would like to put forward my views and observations.

Much is said about the cost smokers put on the health system. However, if you would like to do some investigative journalism try and find out what the cost of alcohol is to the nation. Governments do not like to talk about these figures because of the huge amount of revenue that is raised for them. From talking to friends who are doctors and observing the crowded emergency departments on a Saturday night, the side effects of alcohol on the whole of the community far outweigh the effects of the smokers.

As for the ads on TV, I believe if they stop smokers who cannot work out that it is bad for them, then they are good.

From a personal view I know that it is not good for my health. However, I have been smoking since I was 13 and if I stop now I will not live longer – it will only seem longer.

I pose a question for you, you are driving down the road minding your own business and driving carefully. Who would you like coming the other way at 100kph – a driver who is smoking or someone "over the limit"?

From a personal point of view I consider myself a courteous smoker. I do not smoke near people who I know are affected by smoke – I stay well away from them; I do not throw my butts on the ground so that they end up in the Harbour. I just wish drinkers showed the same regard for people who do not like drunken behaviour.