Design
Soap Box - should tobacco packaging be plain white?
Tobacco packaging is the subject of our Soap Box this week following the publication of the Beyond Smoking Kills report by anti-smoking pressure group Ash.
According to the report plain tobacco packs could "help remove misconceptions about product safety" caused by the use of colour and clever working on packs.
For instance, research from the University of Nottingham, published in the report, showed that packs displaying the words "smooth" and "gold" were considered "lower tar and lower health risk" than regular packs.
While lighter colours gave consumers a similar impression that packs were less harmful or easier to quit.
We want to know what you think. Should all tobacco packaging be plain white? Are we underestimating consumers' ability to read design? Do you think it would make a difference? Are the graphic images being printed on packs from this month enough of a deterrent?
Log onto packagingnews.co.uk here to read the original story and tell us what you think.
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Comments
Richard Jotcham - 09 October 2008
Plain packaging plays directly into the hands of cigarette counterfeiters. Tobacco already tops the list for EU seizures and with the high level of taxation it is not surprising that counterfeiting is growing. Counterfeit cigarettes do not need to conform to any H&S regulations, do not pay any excise duty to Governments and are sold at just below market prices encouraging even more people to smoke. In my opinion introducing plain packs will have a much larger detrimental effect on public health and excise revenue than a perception that lighter coloured packaging is 'safer'.
Pack Man - 09 October 2008
I appreciate that plain packs lack the appeal of branded ones - as is the same for any good - but I am not entirely convinced that it will have a significant impact on smokers. For those who dont already have a favourite brand, price seems to be the most important factor when choosing what to smoke.
I admit that light products are seen as being less harmful, but presumably the products will still be called light or whatever.
Can the government stop companies having a range of product lines? Maybe super skinny lattes will be the next one for the chop.
Design Diva - 10 October 2008
Fake cigarettes can be extremely dangerous as you cannot be sure what is in them. Counterfeit cigarettes can contain dangerously high levels of tar and other noxious substances.
Counterfeit cigarettes are already a massive problem, but currerntly not many make it into the legitimate supply chian. Putting cigarettes into plain packaging will make it harder to distinguish between genuine and fake tobacco and could lead to people unwittingly buying fake - and highly dangerous - cigarettes from genuine outlets.
Rex Cess-Pack - 10 October 2008
There’s a wider issue here than just cigarette pack design: the question of personal accountability. In a way, it’s the same issue that came up in your Soap Box in July over cartoons on packs of sugary junk-food (except you’d hope the typical 18+ smoker has a bit more self-discipline than the average kid on the hunt for his next sugar rush).
Sure, the govt can flex its nanny state muscles and force cig companies to design plain packs. Sure, it’ll have an impact, at first. I’m sure that once upon a time even the words “Smoking Kills” broke through that haze of hankering for a nicotine fix and deterred the odd addict. Images of rotting lungs will definitely put off a few smokers (for a while at least). But in the end, we all know ALL cigarettes are evil. The deliciously toxic poisons in the cigarettes are the problem, not the packs, and we grown adults should be more than capable of deciding whether a functioning respiratory system is high on our personal agenda without carton converters slashing their ink bills.
So this pressure group think there are “misconceptions of product safety”? The fact is, smokers can already ignore the Big Bold Capital Warning of Imminent and Torturous Death plus a high-definition photo of a clogged and decaying trachea while they reach for that gold-foiled, debossed pack of their favourite “Smooth Gold Mellow Mild” cancer sticks. People mislead themselves fine all on their own thank you, without pointing fingers at “misleading” packaging design.
How knows, maybe a plain white design would actually make a brand more popular? It worked for the iPod.
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