Impacts of cigarette advertising on the target audience

The advertisement uses a rhetorical question when saying, "What cigarette do you smoke, Doctor?" and even though the question is directed at the doctor, the question is addressed to the audience in an indirect way. The 'bandwagon' advertising technique is used in this situation, which is when the company exploits the desire of most people to join the crowd, because the advertisers want the target audience to care about the popularity of the product and give them the opportunity to be on the winning side. The issue of doctors and their status in society rises because they should be respected members of a society. With this advertisement, some of the accepted norms in society have to be rethought because doctors are promoting cigarettes so the matter should be reconsidered.

Another social impact included in this advertisement is the problem of racial discrimination because only white people are portrayed in the advertisement. Advertising in general has affected racial minority groups in numerous ways because sometimes particular ethnic groups are not part of the audience. The doctor in the picture is white and so is the lady towards the bottom of the advertisement which sends across the message that the main target audiences are white people of old and young age. This advertisement was released in March, 1946 and at that time there were a lot of racial discrimination problems in America so therefore most probably only the white majorities were targeted by this advertisement. This component of the advertisement raises the issue of how some ethnic groups are treated differently and this is a negative cultural impact because the advertisement indicates that only certain types of people should buy this product and it would only benefit them positively.

The advertisement "More Doctors Smoke Camels than any other cigarette" also has an economical impact because once people are convinced that doctors believe that smoking has many health benefits, most of those people will buy cigarettes and start smoking so therefore increasing the sales of goods in a country. Even though this would be a positive impact on the economy because the demand for the product will increase, the negative impact on society would be all the health problems related to smoking. It could be argued that advertising is uneconomical because most advertising simply encourages consumers to buy a certain brand and this advertisement definitely follows that strategy because of the emphasis on the brand name "Camel." The brand name is outstanding and easy to remember because of the straightforward name and simplistic logo and packaging.

Advertising has a great impact on various elements of a country with a specific focus on the audience that the good is aimed at. The advertisement "More Doctors Smoke Camels than any other cigarette" uses a rhetorical question to address the target audience in an indirect way in order to persuade them. Even though there is a positive impact on the economy, the social impact is negative because there is a strong indication that only certain types of people should be allowed to purchase the product and the audience believed that cigarettes had health benefits when in fact it is harmful to their health.

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Bibliography

More Doctors Smoke Camels THAN ANY OTHER CIGARETTE! (Mar, 1946). 1946. Modern Mechanix. 27 Feb. 2008 <http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/10/18/more-doctors-smoke-camels-than-any-other-cigarette/>.