Its time for pictorial warnings on cigarette packs.
Monday, June 18, 2007Jonathan Foulds, MA, MAppSci, PhDVirtually everyone knows that smoking is bad for health. But smokers typically don’t give much thought to the effects on their own health until they have been smoking for years. They also tend to be less aware of effects other than lung cancer (e.g. cardiovascular effects, effects on reproductive health etc). Health warnings first appeared on the side of US cigarette packs in 1965, stating that, “Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.” The labels on U.S. cigarettes have not changed since 1984 and appear in small black and white print on the side of cigarette packs. Can you remember what they say? (most people can’t).
Messages given in small print on the side of the pack clearly lack salience and persuasive power compared with more colorful, larger messaging placed on the front of the packs. An expert panel commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences described the current warnings as “woefully deficient.” In an effort to help smokers be more clear about the health effects of cigarettes, many other countries around the world (including Australia, Belgium, Brazil and Canada) have introduced larger pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs.
You can view the pictorial health warnings from other countries around the world at:
http://www.smoke-free.ca/warnings/default.htm . These warnings provide quite a contrast to those in use in the United States, and may even help increase a smoker’s motivation to quit simply by viewing them online.
Some recent studies indicate that current U.S. warnings are woefully ineffective at getting the attention of smokers, communicating health risks or motivating smokers to quit, whereas the type of pictorial warnings used in Canada are much better. David Hammond and colleagues at University of Waterloo in Canada examined Canadian smokers’ reactions to the pictorial warnings in Canada. Over 90% of smokers had read the new warnings and those who read them, thought about and discussed the new Canadian warnings were more likely to have quit, made a quit attempt, or reduced their smoking three months later. Dr Ellen Peters and colleagues from University of Oregon recently compared US warnings with those in Canada. A majority of both smokers and non-smokers endorsed the use of Canadian-style warnings in the United States.
A bill currently pending in Congress would give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to require major changes in U.S. cigarette pack health warnings and require that they cover at least the top 30 percent of the front and back of cigarette packs. The legislation would also allow the FDA to increase the warning size to 50 percent of the front and back panels and adopt graphic or pictorial warnings, as Canada and several other countries have already done. Some countries also include the toll-free number for the national Smokers Quitline next to the warning. Its time to upgrade the health warnings on cigarette packs in the United States to include pictorial warnings and the national quitline number (1-800 QUIT NOW).
Read more: http://www.healthline.com/blogs/smoking_cessation/2007/06/its-time-for-pictorial-warnings-on.html#ixzz1JMzro2Gm
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Monday, June 18, 2007
Jonathan Foulds, MA, MAppSci, PhDCigarette health warnings and bogus buy-ology
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Jonathan Foulds, MA, MAppSci, PhDYou may have recently seen a newspaper article (there have been many) stating that the new pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs in many countries (e.g. Canada) don’t work. These news items have been largely based on the work and publicity created by Martin Lindstrom, a marketing guru and author of “Buy-ology: truth and lies about why we buy.’
Now Martin Lindstrom is clearly a clever guy who knows a lot about marketing. But when it comes to interpreting studies of how people’s brains respond to images, I’m afraid he’s not so hot. Lindstrom got funding for some research that involved using modern brain scanning techniques to examine the effects of certain pictures on specific parts of the brain. Part of this research apparently involved showing pictures of cigarette packs (including the health warnings) to 32 people. He claims that these images stimulated activation of the same parts of the brain that “light up” (excuse the pun) when a smoker craves for a cigarette. He then suggests that this shows that pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs are a waste of time and may even stimulate the desire to smoke.
Even without knowing the details of the research (as it hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal) there are a few problems with the logic here. Here are a few to start with:
1. The research does not sound as if it directly compared the effects on the brain of viewing a standard cigarette pack (without large pictorial health warnings), with the effects of viewing packs with large pictorial health warnings. So without such a direct comparison the research says nothing about the effects of adding pictorial health warnings.
2. The idea that smokers may have cravings stimulated by viewing cigarette packs (with or without warnings) isn’t exactly new. Clinicians have long been advising smokers to throw away their packs and other smoking paraphernalia and avoid smoking cues. You really don’t need a brain scan to figure out that when a smoker hasn’t smoked for a while and you show them a cigarette pack they might want to smoke a cigarette!
3. People who buy cigarettes are going to be exposed to cigarette packs, and by the time they are close enough to one to see the health warning then it is quite likely that the health warning isn’t going to stop them smoking a cigarette from that particular pack. But that’s not the way the warnings are likely to work. By seeing a number of large, pictorial and emotionally evocative images that change regularly over a period of time…there is more likely to be a cumulative “drip, drip, drip” effect that contributes (along with many other factors) to the decision and act of finally quitting.
There is more one can say on this topic, but for now there is much stronger research evidence from a number of countries, all concluding that introducing larger pictorial health warnings increases smokers’ interest in quitting and makes a positive contribution to reducing the number of cigarettes being smoked.
Mr Lindstrom knws how to help companies to sell bottles of water for $60, and that requires the ability to get people to believe things without any evidence. He’s done a good job in marketing the idea that his unpublished brain scan study can give us deep insights into how to market things. But like the $60 bottle of water, there appears to be more hyperbole than substance behind his claim that pictorial health warnings are a waste of time. But I can think of one industry that may like his message…maybe even pay for it. If he was right, wouldn’t the tobacco industry support the idea of adding larger pictorial health warnings onto cigarette packs? So why does the tobacco industry oppose it? Maybe they have looked at the wider evidence on cigarette sales before and after the introduction of large pictorial health warnings around the world? Seems more reliable evidence to me than brain scans from 32 people.
For further information on pictorial health warnings, including a link to view the warnings from around the world, check out the link below. I’d be interested in your comments on the pictorial health warnings from around the world. Do they make you want to smoke?
Its time for pictorial warnings on cigarette packs. 6/18/07
http://www.healthline.com/blogs/smoking_cessation/2007/06/its-time-for-pictorial-warnings-on.html
Read more: http://www.healthline.com/blogs/smoking_cessation/2008/12/cigarette-health-warnings-and-bogus-buy.html#ixzz1JMzVhW3m
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