Women & Cigarette Ads- Torches of Freedom

No other business category has received more attention or derision for their advertising efforts than cigarette companies. In the past, tobacco companies were some of the most prolific advertisers, and they were a multi-billion dollar industry that understood the power of the medium and how to gain the greatest benefits from it. Advertising agencies treasured their cigarette clients and assigned them their most talented admen, artists, and copy writers in order to keep the money and good will flowing on all sides. It is no wonder then, that when the tobacco companies chose a new target audience, their profits, recognition, and customer loyalty would inevitably surge to new heights. Even in light of the dangers of smoking, which had been documented for decades but buried or dismissed by the advertisements themselves, the popularity of the habit continued to grow. One of these expansions of the customer base for tobacco was aimed directly at a market considered to be vastly untapped: women. The shrewdest advertisers appropriated symbols of the women’s rights movement when creating their messages to appeal to women who were discovering their newfound freedom and power. As laws drastically changed the face of tobacco advertising, agencies still continued to target women, this time selling the exact opposite message, that smoking was deadly. In all cases, advertisers saw women as an easily influenced demographic, and they presented an idealization of the modern woman that stood in bold contrast to a much harsher reality.

The 20^th century ushered in substantial changes in what women were legally and socially permitted to do, including voting, job opportunities, remaining unmarried, and even smoking in public. Advertisers paid close attention to this dramatic social shift, and they catered their messages to the women who were fully embracing this new independence. Most tobacco campaigns aimed at women can be traced back to one seminal event on Easter Sunday 1929. Edward L. Bernays, heralded as the father of public relations (Tye 1998), devised a campaign in relation to his tobacco clients now known as the “Torches of Freedom” march. Bernays, who spent over 50 years establishing a legacy of bold and controversial campaigns that went far beyond the expected parameters of marketing, arranged for a group of women to meet up and stroll down New York City’s Fifth Avenue openly smoking cigarettes and breaking the taboo of women smoking in public places. Until this event, women who smoked often did so only within the home, hidden away from anyone who could be offended at their partaking in what was considered a manly and immoral habit. Bernays carefully recruited the women in his march to make sure they were attractive but relatable to the average woman, and he also timed the event to coincide with the moment when churches on the avenue would be letting out and providing a large audience. He further increased the audience by hiring photographers to document the event, and those photos were published in major newspapers all over the world with accompanying articles quoting the confident participants as they urged other women to take up their cigarettes as “torches of freedom”.

Although American Tobacco Company was never mentioned in any of this spectacle, the corporation was the client for whom Bernays created the event to increase women’s desires to smoke. At the instruction of Bernays, the women were not to mention any brand names, although they were exclusively given American Tobacco’s flagship brand, Lucky Strikes, to smoke for the occasion. This went beyond selling a particular brand and into creating new customers by convincing women to start smoking. Bernays was interested in changing the entire cultural fiber of America through his marketing ideas, and in this instance he certainly showed an exceptional ability to do exactly that. Larry Tye (1998) wrote, “The Torches of Freedom campaign remains a classic in the world of public relations, one still cited…as an example of ballyhoo at its most brilliant and, more important, of creative analysis of social symbols and how they can be manipulated.” It wasn’t long before more “marches” of women smoking in the streets were happening in other major cities, and suddenly Bernays had opened up a new target market that encompassed half of the world’s population.

As the concept of women smoking lost its taboo, tobacco advertisers focused their attention on an ever-present and all-powerful alpha consumer: the housewife. In charge of the majority of purchases for the household, the housewife was accurately recognized by advertisers as the force behind the buying habits of her whole family. Housewives wanted the best for their families and for themselves, so tobacco companies touted the wholesomeness of their brands and the safety “features” that had been added to cigarettes to increase their marketability. The negative effects of smoking were becoming obvious to the average consumer, and advertisers zeroed in on easing the fears of their audience with the addition of filter tips and milder flavors to reduce the harmful ingredients in the product. Charles Goodrum and Helen Dalrymple (1990) wrote that filters were actually developed, “not for health reasons, but were intended to appeal to women and…increase cigarette sales. It was hoped that the firm, protected end would resist lipstick adherence.” Advertisers consistently spun their messages to fit customer expectations of quality or safety in order to appeal to specific consumers such as housewives. Multiple cigarette ads used testimonials from doctors as a way to not just counter the negative reports that were starting to come from health professionals, but to dismiss them entirely. Slogans like Old Gold’s “Not a Cough in a Carload”, Camel’s “More Doctors Smoke Camels”, and Lucky Strike’s “Kind to Your Throat” sold plenty of cigarettes, but they also alluded to health issues that could arise due to smoking. Instead of romanticizing the idea of smoking, these ads were intended to assure an audience who had developed doubts about the safety of the product. Housewives were encouraged to have tins in the kitchen marked for all of their daily needs: sugar, flour, coffee, and cigarettes. They were also encouraged to keep plenty of cigarettes on hand for themselves, their husbands, and any visitors who might drop by. Advertisers sought to make cigarettes a standard staple of housewives’ regular buying habits, and tobacco sales soared with the success of this type of marketing. The fictional housewives on television were shown as an example for real housewives to follow, and these familiar characters were all too happy to recommend their preferred brands. Lucy Ricardo from I Love Lucy asked us to call for Phillip Morris Cigarettes, Laura Petrie from The Dick Van Dyke Show told us that Kent satisfies best, and even Wilma from The Flintstones sang that Winston tasted good like a cigarette should. Advertisers were willing to use every avenue possible to reach housewives and convince them that the right cigarettes would make their lives and the lives of their families better. Cigarette ads sold an idealized lifestyle to the American public, and the public bought it, heedless of any health problems that could occur.

In the 90 years since the “Torches of Freedom” march, advertisers have continued to appeal to women’s sense of independence and freedom, with the Virginia Slims brand’s “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” not only standing as an iconic campaign, but also bridging the gap from those marchers into the present day. Many of the Virginia Slims ads juxtaposed old photos of women getting in trouble for smoking with new photos of modern-day women being celebrated for smoking. This particular brand, created in 1968, was the first one to be geared exclusively towards women, and its runaway success inspired other companies to create their own feminine brands such as Misty, Dawn, Eve, and Capri. The advertising for these cigarettes gave an air of elegance, glamour, and high fashion, and the models in these ads echoed the longer, slimmer shape of the cigarettes. As women entered the American work force in record numbers, advertisers shaped their messages to fit the new career-minded direction women were going. In the 1970s it had finally become acceptable for a woman to choose a career over having a family, at least for part of their adult lives, and cigarette advertisers latched onto this movement in the same way they had latched onto so many others before. At the heart of any advertisement is its ability to make consumers see a better life for themselves, and cigarette ads geared toward women at this time communicated that their product would make users more accepted and fashionable. However, the reality was that smokers were in the minority of the American population, and ads during this time attempted to unify smokers as a group that was somehow above non-smokers, a “cool factor” of sorts. S.J. Anderson (2005) states “Young women smoking to enhance social belonging alienate themselves from the non-smoking majority.” Advertisements made a powerful statement meant to inspire women to be more confident. In one case, an ad aimed at women had the headline, "Believe in Yourself!" and the accompanying text encouraged customers to confidently use their own judgement in choosing the best brand of cigarettes, and of course they finished by stating their cigarettes will emerge victorious in any comparison against a competitor. At the same time cigarette ads were urging their customers to find their own way and be unique, they were also trying to build a tribe mentality and show the value in being the same as all of the other people who smoked. In gathering this tribe, advertisers were also paving the path for the many health problems these customers would inevitably face.

The Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising website (2006) states, “Only 5 percent of American women smoked in 1923 versus 12 percent in 1932 and 33 percent in 1965 (the peak year). Lung cancer was still a rare disease for women in the 1950s, though by the year 2000 it was killing nearly 70,000 women per year. Cancer of the lung surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death among women in 1987.” These statistics display a dramatic rise in smoking related illnesses which ran parallel to the large increase in the number of women smokers. As the death toll rose, laws were enacted to limit the reach of tobacco advertising and warn the public of the dangers of smoking. In 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General published a report that provided detailed information on the negative health effects of smoking, and it launched a steady stream of legislation that cracked down on the tobacco companies’ heavy-handed influence. Tobacco ads were removed from television and radio starting in 1971, and billboards and other outdoor ads for cigarettes were outlawed by 1998 along with sponsorships of major events (Arens and Schaefer, 2007). As additional laws forbade smoking in some outdoor areas, suddenly the commercial motive behind the “Torches of Freedom” march had been extinguished. There was now more empowerment and strength in stopping smoking than in starting. Media outlets were required by law to air anti-smoking public service announcements, and many of them were directed squarely at women. The same advertisers who had spent decades spouting the wonders of smoking were now using their powers of persuasion to say the exact opposite, that smoking was a horrible and deadly habit that needed to be removed from the face of the earth. As anti-smoking campaigns were launched, audiences were presented with the reality of the horrors of smoking that had lurked for years under the ads that glossed over the dangers of the habit in exchange for a more glamorous representation. In one ad, a powerful and graceful model in full makeup looks flawless, yet a stoma breathing tube in her neck gives us a clear warning of the suffering smoking can bring. The ad boldly shows us and tells us, “Smoking is ugly.”

William Arens and David Schaefer (2007) explained, “Advertising is both applauded and criticized not only for its role in selling products but also for its influence on the economy and on society.” In the case of tobacco advertising directed at women, ad creators never believed in any kind of emancipation or empowerment for females. Advertisers were only interested in using those concepts to draw female customers into a highly addictive and deadly habit that padded the pockets of the ad makers and their tobacco clients. By selling a lifestyle dream, they created a national health nightmare that continues to this day.

Works Cited

Tye, Larry. The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays & the Birth of Public Relations. New York: Crown, 1998. Print.

Goodrum, Charles A., and Helen Dalrymple. "Chapter 11: A Century of Cigarettes." Advertising in America: The First 200 Years. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1990. 190-99. Print.

Arens, William F., and David H. Schaefer. Essentials of Contemporary Advertising. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2007. Print.

Anderson, S. J. "Emotions for Sale: Cigarette Advertising and Women's Psychosocial Needs." Tobacco Control 14.2 (2005): 127-35. Web.

SRITA. "Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising." Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (2006), n.d. Web.