How Tobacco Industries Target Youth - Essay Sample

Introduction

Evidence from past studies shows that the advertisement and promotion of tobacco by respective companies have a massive influence on youths to begin the use of tobacco. Many adolescents find the ads appealing due to the icons used to advertise such products, and this pushes many young people to start using products of tobacco such as cigarettes. Despite the government of many countries coming up with strategies to reduce the use of tobacco, these companies find a way to avoid those restrictions and use other forms of awareness that have little or no restrictions. This has played a major role in making it hard to regulate the abuse of tobacco among the youths, as shown in the synthesis of six different academic sources from the UMUC library.

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In the article "Under the radar-how the tobacco industry targets youth in Australia," the consumption of tobacco in Australia has been declining for many years from 1970 when controls that regulated advertising were introduced. Advertising and promoting of tobacco, the government restricting the use of tobacco in public areas, warnings of health effects on the tobacco packs and an increment in the prices of tobacco have been the major contributors of the decrease in consumption of tobacco in the country (Harper & Martin, 2002). Mass education has also played a significant role in the decline of tobacco use as it educates people how the tobacco companies obtain new consumers especially the youth who replace the regular consumers who either die or quit smoking.

The tobacco industry targets the Australian youths through advertisements which convince the young people to smoke by making it seem acceptable to smoke mostly among the adults. The tobacco industry recruits new smokers, but it does not tell them of the harm it causes on their health or the addiction they risk getting into. Harper & Martin (2002) also argue that the youth who are capable of naming brands of cigarettes with little or no struggles or own an item of promotion from the tobacco company are twice as likely to have the habit of smoking than the youth who have no such item or know little of tobacco brands. They also explain that the ban on advertising tobacco have fewer results if they do not cover all marketing forms. Partial bans on tobacco have little effect on the reduction of tobacco use among youths because the tobacco company responds to such prohibitions by using free media to reach more people.

In the article "Youth say ads for flavored e-liquids are for them," e-cigarettes are the main products of tobacco that are consumed by adolescents and young adults as they come in different flavors. The ads that make flavored tobacco known to the youths target those of specific age groups (McKelvey et al., 2019). The researchers of this project used random samples and viewed eight advertisements to answer the question of age groups. The results of this study showed that the ad for the flavor of cupcake man targeted people who were younger than 93.7% of the participants. Over 50% of the participants felt that the smoothy, vanilla cupcake, cherry, and caramel cappuccino ads targeted people of their age while the ads that majored on no flavor tobacco targeted people who were older than them (McKelvey et al., 2019). Youths suggest that tobacco flavored ads target people of their age, and the ads for these products need to be regulated.

In the article "Alcohol and tobacco marketing targets Hispanic youth," Wiley (2006) argues that the use of drugs is more evident in juvenile systems than in criminal systems for adults based on drug strategies. In advertising about tobacco as well as alcohol, the sales of alcohol and tobacco to minors is against the law. Both of these industries target Hispanic youths as they are the ones who get the most access to tobacco advertisements. The R.J.Reynolds company of tobacco has been reported to market Kool mostly in publications so that they can make many youths buy and read it. The researchers also argue that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration led to APT, which played a significant role in the expansion of services. The family is a unit that affects the use of tobacco by family members, and essential law measures are required to be used to determine the causes of tobacco abuse. Family case management is achieved when a proper investigation is undertaken, and the juvenile courts make the right decisions on the children's abuse of drugs. Judges must understand that the treatment by the community and at home has led to a dispute which increases tobacco use among the youth.

The companies are using ads to exploit the images and cultures of the community where they are marketing tobacco that is addictive to the children in the society (Wiley, 2006). In another result, a Georgetown University shows that a twelve to twenty years youth are used to shoot ads for alcohol and tobacco and they are expected to either drink or smoke these drugs when they are advertising those products. The Latino market is a major target for the tobacco producers, mainly due to the restrictions set on the advertisement of tobacco across different countries in the United States. This market is among the few unregulated markets free from any tobacco advertisement, and this increases its use more than the rest of the population.

In the article, "Perceived social and media influences on tobacco use among Samoan youth," Pacific youths who use tobacco have adverse efforts on the reduction of the rising levels of non-communicable diseases. A major target of the World Health Organization is to minimize tobacco used to less than five percent (McCool, Freeman & Tanielu, 2014). A regulation in tobacco advertisements will be the main ways of reducing its use among young people in the Pacific. The methods that the researcher used in obtaining results and discussions was an examination of students from high school, where they gave their views on tobacco use and the image that tobacco has been displayed in the media. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data, and a thematic analysis was performed on behavior and attitudes that surround the people who use tobacco. Family is an important figure in the representation of the use of tobacco in Samoa through media (McCool, Freeman & Tanielu, 2014). Media has brought out smoking imagery in the society that has had a significant influence on the attitudes that exist in the use of tobacco among the Pacific youth. Families affect the way that the youths perceive the use of tobacco as shown in media because for example adolescents who live in homes where they are expected not to use any tobacco do not view smoking positively as shown in the media and are less likely to take part in its use. Parental influence is crucial in the control of tobacco use in Samoa.

"Reaching Youth at the Point of Sale: Cigarette Marketing Is More Prevalent in Stores Where Adolescents Shop Frequently," marketing of cigarettes is more visible in stores that youths are found to shop most of the time. Most of the advertising of tobacco is found on store windows that are near to schools than those that are farther away from those institutions of learning, especially in California and Boston (Henriksen et al., 2004). Cigarettes that are tobacco products are marketed a lot in stores where young people shop and these have had a great effect on the usage of these products by the youths. Many countries have successfully limited advertising of tobacco on billboards and magazines but have been unable to regulate the advertising of tobacco on the points of sales.

In the article "Adolescents' First Tobacco Products: Associations with Current Multiple Tobacco Product Use," tobacco is highly addictive due to the nicotine it contains. To prevent the use of tobacco among youths, the first step the necessary practitioners need to take is to have an extensive knowledge of which products the adolescents try first (Kowitt, Goldstein, Sutfin, Osman, Meernik, Heck & Ranney, 2019). Secondly, the people in charge need to know the way that demographic factors have an association with the products that the adolescents try first. The last step is to examine how the first product the youths use when trying to use tobacco is related to the frequency of use of tobacco by the youths. These steps help to come up with prevention strategies for tobacco use and policies to reduce the advertisement of tobacco in media and stores. Different psychosocial correlates are associated with the first tobacco product that an individual tried which is similar to the fact that adolescents that are affected by passive smoke from a relative they lived with who smoked cigarettes have a high chance of initiating the use of tobacco through SLT.

Conclusion

Tobacco companies target youths intentionally, especially when marketing and at the point of selling the final products to them either flavored or unflavored. This is mostly visible in stores within a distance of three hundred meters from school and stores that use big icons of the youth in media to display that smoking is not dangerous and can be adopted by many people. This has led to an increase in youths who use tobacco in many parts of different countries. Different strategies have been implemented, and other more effective ones need to be researched to reduce the marketing activities performed to make tobacco products known to the youths.

References

Harper, T., & Martin, J. (2002). Under the radar-how the tobacco industry targets youth in Australia.

Henriksen, L., Feighery, E. C., Schleicher, N. C., Haladjian, H. H., & Fortmann, S. P. (2004). Reaching youth at the point of sale: cigarette marketing is more prevalent in stores where adolescents shop frequently. Tobacco Control, 13(3), 315-318.

Kowitt, S. D., Goldstein, A. O., Sutfin, E. L., Osman, A., Meernik, C., Heck, C., & Ranney, L. M. (2019). Adolescents' first tobacco products: Associations with current multiple tobacco product use. PloS one, 14(5), e0217244.

McCool, J., Freeman, B., & Tanielu, H. (2014). Perceived social and media influences on tobacco use among Samoan youth.

McKelvey, K., Baiocchi, M., Ramamurthi, D., McLaughlin, S., & Halpern-Felsher, B. (2019). Youth say ads for flavored e-liquids are for them. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306460318309572

Wiley, J. (2006). Alcohol and tobacco marketing targets Hispanic youth.