What Age Group Are Marlboro Cigarette Ads Aimed At?

Phillip Morris USA's cigarette ads have been targeting the under 18 crowd for years. "Each day, about 4,000 kids in the United States try their first cigarette and an additional 1,000 kids under 18 years of age become new regular, daily smokers," according to the Tobacco-Free Kids campaign.

The Marlboro Brand

• Kids are the targets.

  Marlboro is the leading brand of cigarettes chosen by children who smoke. Children are more likely to start the habit and are more influenced by advertising and marketing. According to studies by the Federal Trade Commission's Smokeless Tobacco Report 2006, 81.3 percent of youth smokers (12-17) prefer Marlboro, Camel and Newport, three heavily advertised brands, while only 54.1 percent of smokers over age 26 prefer these brands.

The Cigarette Ads

• Ads targeted toward kids are prohibited.

  Although cigarette advertising directed toward children is prohibited by a 1998 court-approved agreement, tobacco companies direct the majority of advertising to adult magazines with high youth readership. "The tobacco companies continue to try to hook new generations of customers on their addictive and lethal products because they need to do that for the very survival of their industry," says Dileep G. Bal, MD, and a president of the American Cancer Society.

The Anit-Smoking Ads

• Some ads are tricky, they say one thing but send a different message with colors or fun wording.

  Phillip Morris continues to hook children on smoking. Anti-smoking campaigns claiming to discourage children from smoking actually bombard them with familiar Philip Morris logos and brand names. Opponents of a past Phillip Morris anti-smoking initiative, in which millions of book covers were sent to schools with an anti-smoking message and the company's logo, "charge the covers attempt to link Philip Morris' name more to fun in the snow than to the "don't smoke" message."