How Nontobacco Ads Help Sell Cigarettes

With its finding that 30 percent of female high-school seniors smoke, a new report by the Surgeon General is sure to prompt fresh attacks on tobacco advertising. When you look at cigarette ads, though, the target barely seems worth the ammunition fired at it. It’s mostly a bland, boring category. To the extent the ads generate interest, they usually do so by subordinating tobacco to other topics. Thus, cigarette ads may make you want to frolic in the woods, pick up brazen hussies in bars or drive in the Indianapolis 500.