The government (always busy doing seriously important shit) decided that consumers of cigarettes are not savvy enough to understand the bold, plain font warning that: " 'Light' does not mean a safer cigarette." Now, this makes sense and all, there are some dumb people in the world, but it's 2011, and every single living creature knows that cigarettes are bad for you. Really. And if the education, and prevention and other stuff is not enough, we have pictures on the boxes of what will happen.
Well, the terms "light", "mild" and other phrases that apparently caused smokers to think, "oh, well these have gotta be healthy, see? Light." So legislation was passed for cigarettes to no longer be marketed using such words. But how would the various types of tobaccos within a single brand be able to stand apart? Colors and cool names are now the non-misleading types. And do I love the names. Marlboro alone has blues, reds, greens, (formely milds, regular, and menthol). But they didn't stop there, now they have Blend No. 27, 72's, and two types of special blends whose only difference is the graphic on the box. Not to mention the menthol versions of these types. Why did they do this? To confuse the average consumer? How many different types will smokers have to try until they find their brand. Camels blue or red? Non-menthol Newports? Turkish Gold, Turkish Silver, Red, mediums, smooth, ultra (formally ultra lights), gold and a thousand other variations. Why? Because, this is the golden age of cigarette marketing.
No comments:
Post a Comment