1. Tobacco Industry: Marketing Influence on Youth

2. Today We Will Cover… Tobacco in our daily lives
Reasons why people start using tobacco
How the tobacco industry targets youth
Different images being marketed
Analyze different types of tobacco ads
Tell participants that today we are going to discuss:
Tobacco in our daily lives
Reasons why people start using tobacco
How the tobacco industry targets youth
Different images being marketed
Analyze different types of tobacco ads

3. Where do you see tobacco in your everyday life?
Activity: Tobacco in My Life
Time: 5 minutes
Materials needed: Dry erase board or poster board, markers
Directions:
Tell the participants that we want to start off our discussion today by discussing about where we see tobacco in our lives.
Ask participants to think about where they might see tobacco in their own lives.
“Can you think of examples of where you see tobacco in your daily life?”
Ask participants to pair up with a classmate sitting next to them and ask their classmate the question and discuss as a pair.
“Where do you see tobacco in your every day life?”
Tell participants that we will take a few minutes for you all to talk with your partner. Each pair will need to report back something that they discussed together to the larger group.
After about 2 minutes ask the class to reconvene back together as a large group.
Ask each of the pairs to report back something that they discussed together.
Write down the on the dry erase board or poster board examples that participants give.
Potential Responses:
Advertising (magazines, billboards, posters)
Convenience, pharmacy, grocery stores
Movies, TV
Friends, family members
People in public
Clothing

4. Tobacco in your life Someone you know Television Movies Music
Advertising
Convenience/Grocery Stores
Tell participants that tobacco affects everyone in this room. Someone you know likely uses tobacco
products (family member, friend, coach or teacher).
Tell participants that in fact tobacco use is still very common, 1 in 5 people use tobacco products in
North Carolina (20.9% of the population).
Many movies and television shows have characters that use tobacco products:
Action/adventure movies seem to have a lot of tobacco use (For example: Casino or detective movies).
Disney (For example: the hookah caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland).
It is still mentioned in a lot of music lyrics (Ex. Blake Sheldon song, ”Chew Tobacco, Spit”).
It is still in our advertising (Ex. magazines, buses, bill boards).
It is very visible at convenience and grocery stores.

5. 90% of all smokers begin before age 20.
99% of smokers begin before age 26.
Tell participants, “Everyone knows that tobacco is bad for you and your health. Yet, youth tobacco use rates are still on the rise. The majority of people who smoke, begin when they are young.”
Read these statistics from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
Nearly 90% of smokers begin before age 20.
99% of all smokers begin before the age of 26.
Tell participants, “Most people do not start using tobacco products thinking that they will be lifelong smokers or dip/chew users. There are many different reasons why a person might begin to use tobacco.” Ask participants, “Can you think of some examples of how people might begin using tobacco?”

6. Reasons Why? Social (to fit in) Relaxation/Stress Relief Peer Pressure
Look older
Try something new
Bored/alone
Cultural
Write and review participants’ answers on the board.
Potential Responses:
Social (to fit in, be liked by peers)
Boredom/Alone
Nervous
Relaxation
Stress relief
Look older
Feel cool
Peer pressure
Drinking and smoking together
Try something new
Cultural
Environmental
Tell participants that you would like to read one example to them. “Emily started smoking occasionally on weekends at parties. All her friends were smoking outside and she did not want to feel left out or seem uncool. She liked how it made her feel independent and older and she liked having something in common with her friends.”
Explain to participants that people may think that they will just smoke socially with friends, at a party, or once in a while when they are out. However, a lot of times these behaviors lead to an addiction that is very hard to break, maybe even a lifetime of addiction.

7. Tobacco Industry: Targeting Youth
Tell participants that you want them to watch a brief video from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called “Robbing the Future” that was created for the 50th Anniversary of the Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health.
Either click on the image in the slide or click on this link to view the video.
After viewing the video, ask participants their reaction to the video.
“Is there anything that stands out about this video?”
“Anything you find surprising?” “What are some of the concerns that this video mentions?”
Potential Responses:
The Tobacco Industry has a long history of marketing targets youth.
E-cigarettes introduce youth to nicotine addiction, which has been proven to affect adolescent brain development and can cause lasting consequences.
Tobacco Industry used things like cartoons to market their product.

8. Tobacco Industry: Targeting Youth1 13
out of every
children alive in the US today will die early from smoking
5.6 million
children alive in the US today will die early from smoking
Tell participants that even as cigarette use drops, around 4,000 youth under the age of 18 try their first cigarette every day in the U.S. That is 1.5 million youth each year.
Highlight from the video that if we don’t do more to prevent youth from starting to smoke, one out of every 13 children alive today under the age of 17 years old in the United States will die early from smoking. That is that is 5.6 million people.

9. Tobacco Industry: Targeting Youth
We know that tobacco companies:
Multi-billion dollar industry
Historically have targeted youth
Electronic cigarette companies are using the same tactics
Explain to participants that as we saw in the video, the tobacco industry has a long history of marketing towards youth. The tobacco industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and much of its money is spent on advertisement. These advertising campaigns are geared to attract young adults and children. E-cigarettes are the latest means in which tobacco companies are attempting to attract youth to their product.
Ask participants, “Why do tobacco companies spend so much money on marketing to youth?
Potential Responses:
Get youth them interested and addicted to nicotine at an early age.
These companies know that if they are able to hook an adolescent on their products that they have a really big chance of having them as lifelong consumers, and that makes money.

10. Tobacco Industry: Targeting Youth
ACTIVITY:
Tobacco Advertising
All companies use marketing and advertising to get people to want to buy their product. The tobacco industry is no exception. They sell an image along with their product, even it is untrue and harmful to the consumer.
Tell participants, “Let’s look at some tobacco ads together. Some of these are ads used in the past and some are current.”

11. Tobacco Ads Ask participants:
“What are they trying to sell in this ad?”
“What about this ad is appealing or attractive to you.”
“Does the ad include tobacco products in it?”

12. Tobacco Ads Ask participants:
“What are they trying to sell in this ad?”
“What about this ad is appealing or attractive to you.”
“Does the ad include tobacco products in it?”
FYI:
This is the iconic Marlboro man. There were many different men who were used to advertise Marlboro products. Unfortunately, many of them died of smoking related causes.

13. Tobacco Ads Ask participants:
“What are they trying to sell in this ad?”
“What about this ad is appealing or attractive to you.”
“Does the ad include tobacco products in it?”

14. Tobacco Ads Ask participants:
“What are they trying to sell in this ad?”
“What about this ad is appealing or attractive to you.”
“Does the ad include tobacco products in it?”

15. Tobacco Ads Ask participants:
“What are they trying to sell in this ad?”
“What about this ad is appealing or attractive to you.”
“Does the ad include tobacco products in it?”
FYI:
This is a more recent advertisement for Marlboro.

16. Tobacco Ads Ask participants:
“What are they trying to sell in this ad?”
“What about this ad is appealing or attractive to you.”
“Does the ad include tobacco products in it?”
FYI:
This is a recent 2014 advertisement for Camel cigarettes found in a Glamour magazine.

17. Tobacco Ads Ask participants:
“What are they trying to sell in this ad?”
“What about this is ad is appealing or attractive to you.”
“Does the ad include tobacco products in it?”
FYI:
This ad is a recent ad for snus, a new smokeless product.

18. Tobacco Ads Ask participants:
“What are they trying to sell in this ad?”
“What about this is ad is appealing or attractive to you.”
“Does the ad include tobacco products in it?”
This is a recent ad for the brand name Blu Electronic Cigarettes. Ask participants, “What is similar in these last few ads that we saw in the ads earlier?”
Potential Responses:
Hardworking, rugged men
Sexy women and men
Exotic images of travel and adventure
Independent, original people
People having fun
As you can see, the Tobacco Industry is using a lot of their same marketing techniques to market their latest products.
FYI:
While it is illegal for tobacco companies to directly advertise to youth, e-cigarettes are currently not part of that regulation. E-cigarettes are the latest means in which tobacco companies are attempting to attract youth to their product and they are aggressively marketing e-cigarettes to youth as we speak. From , youth exposed to e-cigarette ads increased by 256%. Tobacco ads are also appearing for new emerging tobacco products like snus.

19. Tobacco Industry: Targeting Youth
Athletic
Sexy
Independent
Fun
Handsome
Cool
Popular
Outgoing
Courageous
Older
Thin
Beautiful
Hard-working
Rebellious
Explain to participants that the tobacco industry uses different advertising pitches to appeal to youth. Tobacco companies want to persuade us that we will be what they advertise if we use their product.
You just mentioned many of these images that companies use to market their product. These include being:
Athletic: Athletes playing sports using tobacco (especially dip/chew among baseball players).
Sexy: Beautiful women or handsome who appear to be very popular and cool.
Independent: Young, perhaps rebellious, young people who are looking for an adventure.
Fun: A group of carefree young people using tobacco while doing something fun.

20. Tobacco Industry: Targeting Youth
Explain to participants that the tobacco industry has also used mascots to appeal to youth.
Examples include the Camel from Camel cigarettes, the bears from Grizzly and Kodiak smokeless tobacco products.

21. Tobacco Industry: Targeting Youth
Flavored tobacco products
Electronic cigarettes
Smokeless tobacco
Menthol cigarettes
Sweet cigarettes/cigars
Tobacco companies also use flavors that are appealing to youth and young adults. These flavors make the products seem safe and friendly because you are familiar with them.
There are many different flavors of smokeless tobacco and cigar. These include candy flavors that appeal to younger people.
Other examples include apple, berry, citrus, peach, grape, strawberry, spearmint, vanilla, and birthday cake.
Menthol cigarettes are mint flavored.
Electronic cigarettes are no exception. Adding flavors such as maple pancakes and vanilla cupcake entices young people to start using electronic cigarettes.
FYI:
Flavored cigarettes have been outlawed in the United States, but tobacco companies still sell other tobacco products in 45 flavors.

22. Debrief
Ask participants about the tobacco ads and marketing techniques we looked through today.
What do you think about that?
How does that make you feel?
Ask participants to recap what we discussed today in class.
Discussed where we see tobacco in our daily lives
Talked about reasons why people start using tobacco
Explained how the tobacco industry targets youth
Looked at different images being marketed
Analyzed different types of tobacco ads
Assign any assignments that you would like participants to do at home before the next session.