[Cigarette and advertising poster: history of a dangerous connection in the post-war economic boom]

Rev Med Suisse. 2013 Nov 27;9(408):2240-4, 2246.
[Article in French]

Abstract

The advertising poster's main characteristic is the ability to convey a commercial message quickly and publicly thanks to its straightforward image and text. The young people, being the tobacco industry's principal target, are particularly exposed to these messages. This kind of advertisement becomes a mean of counterstroke as soon as the cigarette's harmfulness is acknowledged. Some of the cigarette industry's strategies can be revealed by the historical analysis of a 253 posters corpus selected among the main cigarette manufacturers in Switzerland at the time of the post-war economic boom. With the misuse of sport's theme, the overvaluation of the filter's efficiency, the use of a vocabulary that implies lightness and by erasing the image of smoke in its advertisement, the industry tries to reassure the smoker wrongly.

Publication types

  • Historical Article

MeSH terms

  • Advertising / history*
  • History, 20th Century
  • Humans
  • Smoking / adverse effects
  • Smoking / economics
  • Smoking / history*
  • Switzerland
  • Tobacco Industry / economics
  • Tobacco Industry / history*