Tobacco advertising and promotion

If tobacco advertising and promotion increase cigarette consumption, they are issues for public health policy. Although public health advocates assert that tobacco advertising does increase cigarette consumption, there is a significant empirical literature that finds little or no effect of tobacco advertising on smoking. In this chapter, these empirical studies are examined more closely with several important insights emerging from the analysis. The chapter also provides new empirical research from 102 countries on the effect of tobacco advertising. The primary conclusion of this research is that a comprehensive set of tobacco advertising bans can reduce tobacco consumption and that a limited set of advertising bans will have little or no effect. The policy options that have been proposed for the control of tobacco advertising include limitations on the content of advertisements, restrictions on the placement of advertising, restrictions on the time that cigarette advertising can be placed on broadcast media, total advertising bans in one or more media, counter-advertising and the taxation of advertising. This analysis concludes that neither restrictions on the content and placement of advertising, nor bans in only one or two media, are effective. However, comprehensive control programs, including comprehensive advertising bans, do reduce cigarette consumption. Counteradvertising, which is the use of media to promote public health, also reduces cigarette consumption. The taxation of advertising also reduces total advertising with the additional advantage of raising revenue that could be used to fund counter-advertising.