Alcohol and Tobacco Advertising: Puffing Away at an Underage Audience

Take a moment and place yourself in this situation. You're the parent of a young child. You are at a restaurant, or even sitting down for a family dinner at home. Your innocent and vulnerable child picks up a straw and mimics the "101 Dalmatians" villain Cruella Devil. Cruella is seen through the movie puffing away on a cigarette in a long, slender, and fashionable holder. Even though your child is not damaging his or her own or anyone else's health in any way, what impact does this behavior have on the future habits of your innocent little child? We mimic those who we admire but in this case emulation due to appreciation has nothing to do with it. The child mimicked a part of a villainous character that she/he thought looked cool. While the aim of the Disney film may have been to portray smoking as evil by making it the habit of a villain, they accomplished the exact opposite. The suave, wealthy, fashionable, and grownup look of the cigarette only enticed the curiosity of the youthful audience.

Similarly, an intelligent, but young, teenage girl is looking through a copy of her mother's Cosmopolitan magazine. She is bombarded with all kinds of advertising, for make-up, clothing, beauty aids, food, perfume, insurance, engagement rings, cigarettes, and alcoholic beverages just to name a few. Insurance, engagement rings, cigarettes and alcoholic beverages do not sound age appropriate? You may think to yourself, it's not her magazine, but what you don't know is that the majority of the audience is more like her than you think. The average age of the subscribing audience viewing magazines like Cosmopolitan range from eighteen to twenty-two says Corporate Mirrors (Cota). However, I suspect that this range is on the high end. I feel that the magazine might even have a younger following, which either reads mom's copy or purchases their own in a grocery store without subscribing. Now, while knowing about their younger following, these "women's" magazines continue to litter their pages with tobacco and alcohol advertisements. These advertisements are almost always appealing to the younger audience.