Cigarettes and Advertising

            Cigarette advertisements were everywhere in the 1950s through the 1970s and today you do not see any advertisements for cigarettes. In the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, you would see cigarette advertisements on television, magazines, billboards, and tobacco companies would also sponsor entire shows. When the truth began to come out about how dangerous cigarette smoke was, advertisers changed how they advertised their cigarettes. From there, some restrictions were put on the advertisements of tobacco. This again changed and restricted on what advertisers could do.
             Before I go into the advertisements of cigarettes, I will discuss how smoking overall changed before and after the war. Before WWI, there was a strong anti-smoking movement in the United States. Cigarettes were looked at as a mark of deviancy. Thirteen states prohibited the sale of cigarettes, and many more states, municipalities and private businesses passed various restrictions on their sale and use. 1 This all changed after WWII; the amount of men that smoked increased a little but the amount of women smokers rose significantly during and after WWII. By the mid-60s, smoking became a norm and it was okay to smoke. People would smoke in cinemas, theatres, pubs, restaurants, public transport, hospitals and schools and no one would think twice of it. It had completely changed and this is when cigarette advertisers were doing whatever they wanted with their advertisements. 2 During this time, tobacco advertisers focused their advertisements on the taste and aroma of their cigarette. Like I stated before, tobacco companies would sponsor entire television shows including cartoons like "The Flintstones". There were celebrities such as Lee Marvin, John Wayne, and Irene Ryan that were all over cigarette commercials. Some advertisements even advertised free cigarettes to all hospitalized veterans. Advertisers had a full green light on their cigarette advertisements.