Advertising and Promotion of Tobacco Encourage Smoking Among Youth: Study

C. Billboards are in people’s neighborhoods and are constantly exposing youth and adults to unsolicited messages.

As Judge Hargrove noted in Penn Advertising of Baltimore Inc v Mayor of Baltimore,53

“A billboard is a constant fixture in a neighborhood. It looms over children every day while they walk to school, and every time they play in their neighborhood, thus forming an inescapable part of their daily life.”

“Eight-sheet” (5 by 11 feet) billboards are particularly effective in encroaching on people in their neighborhood, because they are smaller than the typical highway billboards, are low to the ground, and are close to the street (and thus, to sidewalks, cars, and school buses). As noted above, in 1985 tobacco advertising expenditures for eight-sheet billboards were $7.8 million — about half the total expenditures for that medium ($15.6 million).49

Voluntary codes by the billboard industry have been ineffective in preventing youth exposure to tobacco billboards (e.g., the code of the Outdoor Advertising Agencies of America, which recommends that its member companies not advertise tobacco and alcohol within 500 feet of schools and other areas where underage youth congregate).54 Evidence presented to the Lansing, Michigan city council, which recently banned tobacco billboards in that city, showed a substantial overlap between tobacco billboards and school bus routes. A similar problem has been reported from the United Kingdom, where many tobacco billboards are found near schools, in violation of a voluntary agreement on cigarette advertising between the government and cigarette manufacturers.55

In the Roper Starch study conducted for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (mentioned above),12 children (10-17 years old) who said they knew Joe Camel were asked “Please tell me the ways that you might have seen or heard about this character.” The largest proportion (51%) said the information came from a billboard advertisement, followed by an advertisement in a magazine (45%), an advertisement in a store (32%), or from a T-shirt (22%). On the other hand, for other cartoon characters in advertisements — e.g., the Energizer Bunny, Ronald McDonald, and the Keebler Elves — recognition based on billboard exposure was between 6% and 13%.12

Further evidence that tobacco billboards are reaching (and probably influencing) youth comes from a survey conducted for the trade publication Advertising Age. It showed that 46% of children 8-13 years old said they most often saw cigarette advertising on billboards. Moreover, 34% of those 14-18 years of age cited billboards as the predominant advertising medium for tobacco products.56

D. Billboards in urban, inner-city environments are more likely to carry tobacco and alcohol advertisements, often targeted to racial and ethnic minorities.

A number of studies have shown that billboards in urban, inner-city environments are more likely to carry tobacco and alcohol advertisements, often targeted to racial and ethnic minorities. A survey in Baltimore, before that city banned tobacco and alcohol billboards, showed that of 2,015 billboards in the city, 75% were located in predominantly poor, African American neighborhoods; 75% of those billboards carried tobacco or alcohol ads, compared to 20% in white neighborhoods.57

The Detroit Planning Commission conducted a study of the 4,144 billboards in the city in 1989. It found that advertisements for tobacco and alcohol products accounted for 55% to 58% of all billboards in lower income Detroit, compared to 34% to 43% in higher income areas. The two billboards found to be the tallest and largest both advertised tobacco.58

A Chicago Lung Association survey found 27% more billboards in predominantly African American wards in Chicago than in white wards.59 In Washington, D.C., few alcohol and tobacco billboards were found in ward 3, which is predominantly white; however, 78% of billboards advertised alcohol or tobacco in wards 7 and 8, which are heavily African American.60 A similar pattern of targeting ethnic and poor neighborhoods was found in St. Louis, Atlanta, and San Francisco.61

Based on the evidence cited elsewhere in this report, it is reasonable to assume that the higher density of tobacco billboards in poor, ethnic neighborhoods is responsible for smoking by large numbers of young people in racial and ethnic populations in urban areas. This is a matter of great concern given the recent report that smoking prevalence increased substantially from 1991 to 1997 among African American high school students (from 12.6% to 22.7%) and among Hispanic students (from 25.3% to 34.0%).62

VII. Conclusions

A. Conclusions of the 1994 Surgeon General’s report

Based on much of the evidence cited above, the 1994 Surgeon General’s report “Preventing Tobacco Use Among Young People”2 reached the following conclusions about tobacco advertising and promotion:

1. Young people continue to be a strategically important market for the tobacco industry.
2. Young people are currently exposed to cigarette messages through print media (including outdoor billboards) and through promotional activities….
3. Cigarette advertising uses images rather than information to portray the attractiveness and function of smoking. Human models and cartoon characters in cigarette advertising convey independence, healthfulness, adventure-seeking, and youthful activities — themes correlated with psychosocial factors that appeal to young people.
4. Cigarette advertisements capitalize on the disparity between an ideal and actual self-image and imply that smoking may close the gap.
5. Cigarette advertising appears to affect young people’s perceptions of the pervasiveness, image, and function of smoking. Since misperceptions in these areas constitute psychosocial risk factors for the initiation of smoking, cigarette advertising appears to increase young people’s risk of smoking.”