Will retailing cigarettes in plain packaging seriously stop people, and especially the young, from smoking?
The Government, in the guise of its faux messianic health minister, thinks so and is currently inviting various informed parties to debate the proposition. Presumably, that’ll extend as far as canvassing opinion from the packaging industry itself. The conclusion has, I suspect, been reached already by Andrew Lansley’s bonding group or whichever cabal it is that determines NHS policy these days, and is a done deal.
It’s now 15 months and counting since I last inhaled anything more potentially stimulating than fresh air. Do I miss it?
What do you think? Still, thankfully ‘Mad Men’ is back on the box so there is the vicarious pleasure of a weekly remote controlled passive smoking fix.
While I’m not expecting the call, I would guess that fighting packaging’s corner within this process of joint consultation is not quite as clear-cut as it might appear to be. On the one hand, I’d be honour- bound to support the premise that on pack adornment is the marketing strategy du jour when it comes to selling a brand; on the other, there’d be an understandable aversion to being supportive of anything that might be labelled as an indirect or inadvertent conduit for cancer.
Do people really start smoking cigarettes because of the seductive allure of the cartons in which they’re packaged?
More to the point, how alluring is this design creativity anyway? It often strikes me as being a wishy-washy successor to the glitz and glamour reflected via the fag packets of my own dimly remembered youth.
I started smoking because it was a more palatable form of rule-breaking than, say, hot-wiring cars. I imagine the impetus is much the same for most new recruits today. While the John Player’s mariner or the rather camp cavalier who fronted up on Passing Clouds were all part and parcel of the experience, it was what was and is contained within those almost plainly paper-wrapped coffin nails that kept you coming back for more.
It’s my bet that the implicit notoriety created by the combined banning of onpack text and graphics, and then not even displaying them in-store, will be just as likely to encourage the purchase of cigarettes as to deter it. Scaling back on the packaging is not the prescribed cure-all; rather, it’s simply a matter of ‘education, education, education’.
That, however, being one thing in triplicate but an altogether trickier can of worms to open up in practice, it’s far easier and prospectively vote-catching to dodge the message and instead shoot the messenger. Thinking about the inanity of it all makes me quite stressful. Have you got a light, boy?
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If packaging does nothing to entice people to start smoking, then why do tobacco companies spend so much time, effort and money researching and altering the packages of their products?
If it won’t do anything to affect sales, then why are the tobacco companies spending millions of dollars trying to fight plain packaging in Australia’s High Court?
I believe you are entitled to shoot the messenger, when the messenger is effectively shooting the public through peddling an addictive product that causes many deaths through emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, et al.
Who said plain packaging was a ‘cure all’? It isn’t. But it is a step in the right direction and, judging by the fierce resistance from the tobacco industry, must have a good chance of success.
Is it too late to take Des up on his bet that it will have the opposite effect?
Erik, really, you obviously read packaging news and hence know something about the industry but your comment shows such a complete lack of knowledge in packaging that I wonder if you have just logged on to have a dig…..
Tobacco companies spend so much time and effort on changing packs yes to differentiate their product from competition but mostly to fight the forgers selling products filled with saw dust, sand and twigs that are far worse then tobaco.
Printers are constantly spending millions improving embossing, print quality and pack shapes, tear tapes and over wraps as well as tax stamps with and without holgrams.
Without these items whats to stop those who smoke from differentiating cartons from counterfit products sold in a suit case on the street corner and causing them self even greater harm, more quickly..?
Education is the key, not the print or package.
Very Interesting. 1st they tried putting all this pictures on the box, has that helped? The answer is no! Why people dont read whats on the box. Might have looked at it once or twice but seriously? No one cares and its not stopping people from smoking as no looks at it. Changing the packaging to blank packaging. Again no one cares! its not going to stop people from smoking. Lets put up the taxes that will stop them! No it won’t, if poeple want to smoke they will. Whats next? Lets make all alcohol packaigng blank too! Excellent idea that will stop people from drinking? Again all this time on fighting on packaging for smokers is seriously a waste of time. People who want to smoke will smoke, people who want to drink will drink. I am just interested in what’s next?