Be informed

The winning spring cigarette advertising campaigns in Germany are Vogue ‘made for women’ (pictured left – see also post 7 December 2013) and new to the competition, Camel, with their curious descent into primary colour packaging (below right). The recent Lucky Strike campaign is clearly having an interregnum.

Camel’s slogan translates literally, I think, as ‘now becoming colour’; though it may better translate into ‘now colourful’ with red, orange, yellow and green packets. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what the colours represent – they could be random colours or relate to a blend (I think it is the former). I suggest, however, that the packaging relates to how quickly or nastily the content will kill the consumer – with red being acute and green giving the smoker more time alive, though enjoying chronic ill-health?

I have not been in the City for a few weeks, but the cigarette advertisers are turning to thoughts of spring. The cigarette billboards are popping up like spring flowers, unfortunately, not so fleeting.

So, here is the update: perhaps temporarily, Marlboro has adapted its “Maybe”

campaign to incorporate the “no additives” approach of Pall Mall and others. So gone are the young people;  now we have pictures of packaging and green leaves.

Pall Mall, meanwhile, continues with happy young people and greenery.

JSP has launched a new campaign called ‘Just Free’. I need to look into this, but the three protagonists in the poster (left) seem instrumental. They are doing something with intent; presumably their intent is not simply a desperate visit to the tobacconist to buy a packet of cigarettes?

Marlboro’s Maybe campaign has re-introduced youth (possibly heading toward the boundaries of legality again with the advertising authorities in Germany). A ‘Maybe’ may not fall in love, it seems. The couple featured in the advertisement (left), seem to be spending romantic time out of doors. Maybe they have emerged after some physicality, giving the unshaven man some time to light up and demonstrate to his beloved that he does not intend to live long. Lovely sunrise, though.

Meanwhile, JSP seems to have de-emphasised the ‘glide’ technology that featured in their   advertising towards the end of last year. They are just going for the no additives approach. The poster is a bit dull; I spotted this one through a snow covered roof at ‘sunrise’. Not a romantic location at all.

Finally, Pall Mall continues its advertising spend. I have not seen any big posters recently, but the ubiquitous cigarette machines are clearly suitable locations. This one captured today at Munich Airport (left). The spring flowers make a nice touch.

The ‘Don’t be a Maybe’ Marlboro campaign has taken a new direction presumably in response to the criticism it received with respect to glamorising the product (for and by young people). First they launch the bearded man (see post 1 December 2012) and now – in parallel – we have the defiant very old woman. She clearly has done something that makes her not a ‘Maybe’, though we have no idea what that was or might have been. Her defiant pose – fist raised – suggests even now she is not to be messed with. It is actually a great photograph, but I suspect not too many smokers of Marlboro get to her age.

By contrast, the Gauloises brand continues to lunch out on Paris. A couple of packets of cigarettes wander around Paris having a good time. Genius.

So, it is now not possible in Australia to brand cigarettes. From today, cigarettes can only be sold in packs that are olive green in colour and depict images of the consequences of smoking; for example, blindness (see right). The industry has, of course, objected to this – even at one point claiming that it was an infringement of trading law. Essentially the argument goes that states cannot restrict firms from using their brands. The role of the state is to maintain fairness in trading, not restrict it.

In going to law, the tobacco industry lost the case. In response the industry then claimed that the new rules would draw in counterfeiters, particularly from Asia. This is a nice but flawed relativist argument. By definition, counterfeited products are potentially more dangerous – brand owners, even cigarette brand owners – do not try to poison consumers in any acute sense (over time, they knowingly do so). But there is no safe level of cigarette consumption. And the explicit aim of the Australian government is to stop people from smoking. One has to assume that the Australian government does have a contingency for the counterfeiters.

Good on the Australian government.

By way of contrast, cigarette advertising – brand promotion – goes on in every German high street. Today I shot the latest in the ongoing Marlboro ‘Don’t be a Maybe’ campaign (left). The campaign requires some insider knowledge fully to understand. The notion of being a ‘maybe’ is not clear from any one poster, but I have seen the associated video in shops; chilling in their association with glamour and success. Indeed, the campaign has been criticised and deemed to be in breach of the law. Cigarette companies cannot target young people in advertising. Frankly, most of the brands glamorise smoking for young people (see elsewhere in this blog copious examples, particularly Pall Mall). I think it needs to be turned around. ‘Don’t be a maybe cancer sufferer’?

L&M have a new poster for the run up to Christmas (right). There is no glamorisation of smoking as the brand pursues its additive free nature. Different and a standard, if my translation is correct.

Pall Mall summer campaign

The cycle continues for Pall Mall cigarette advertising. It is our carefree bunch of 20 somethings  enjoying life and now the summer to the full, including smoking. I almost feel that I know these characters now.