You've come a long way baby

The Australian Retailers Association has mounted a frantic campaign against plain packaging for cigarettes. It is fast running out of time because the Federal government will ban colourful cigarette packaging in 2012. I’m not sure who the Association’s audience is meant to be. Parents of young children won’t empathise, smokers don’t care and most non-smokers will be thrilled to have those cancer sticks in plain wrap and hidden well under the counter. Nobody cares, except perhaps civil rights groups, but I don’t think that when it comes to this particular issue they will have much influence.

The multiple radio advertisements I’ve been badgered with try to convince that plain packaging won’t work. That it won’t stop people from smoking. What the adverts and the Retailers Association fail to mention, for obvious reasons, is that plain packaging will crimp profits. When I smoked plain packaging and cigarettes under the counter would not have influenced me a bit. On the other hand colourful cigarette boxes work beautifully on beginners. When they get to the shop they will immediately know their preferred brand and they will be loyal to that brand to the bitter end.

Colourful packaging is the last hurrah as far as cigarette advertising goes. Now that accepting sponsorship from cigarette companies is on the nose and cigarette ads are banned, promoting cigarette boxes are all that’s left to the companies that produce them. If you’re a young person starting down that emphysema road, then cool is everything. If all packaging looks the same, where’s the allure?


I remember Virginia Slims. I loved them in the 1990s. They were long and elegant, reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s lighting up at the end of very long cigarette holders. (So elegant is that image that I've seen it trying to sell chocolate products.) I would hold my Virginia Slims a certain way, taking deep breaths and exhaling with my head tilted sideways and up and my eyes half shut. I felt really stylish.

According to Wikipedia, the brand was introduced in 1968 and marketed to professional women using the slogan ‘You’ve come a long way baby’. Later campaigns used the slogan ‘It’s a woman thing’ and ‘Find your voice.’ Wikipedia also states that ‘media watch groups considered this campaign to be responsible for a rapid increase in smoking among teenage girls.’ It must have been a promoter’s dream.

I think don’t think the Australian Retailer’s Association advertisements are working or will work no matter how much money is thrown at them. The Association lives in a world as we all do where to abuse an old cliché, advertising is king. Get the right angle on a product is the wisdom of the day then throw enough money at it and it will usually work. But in this case no amount of money that will help; there’s no empathy and no interest. As I said before, nobody gives a damn.