I was reading an article earlier today and it caught my attention. Cigarette companies. How are Cigarette companies targeting their market nowadays? Their biggest focus nowadays is to target teenagers which is a huge growing market. Based on a study of 966 students, 53.7% has never smoked, 20.7% were puffers(smoked once or twice in their lifetime), and around 11.5% were regular smokers. This data was all based on how Cigarette companies were marketing their product at retail stores which is known as “Point-of-Sale tobacco advertising”. This type of advertising has been proven to be highly effective for tobacco companies to market their product. Currently, 90% of the tobacco industry rely of this form of advertising to increase consumer awareness. Other than retail advertising, this form of advertising includes price discounts and promotions such as “buy 1 get 1 free”. I believe this form of tobacco marketing should be banned just like how tobacco companies used to use cartoon characters in tobacco advertisments, which later was banned back in 1998. As of today, teens’ exposure to cigarette advertising at retail outlets has increased the rate of smoking amongst teens. According to the study, students who visited retail outlets with tobacco advertisements were more likely to go purchase cigarettes compared to non-frequent smokers. I believe this should be considered an unethical form of marketing even though tobacco companies are argueing that the “purpose of advertising is to encourage smokers to switch brands”, but this clearly shows that advertising encourges this deadly habit. What do you think?