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"Cigarette Seduction, Part II" with Alan Brody: What The Smoker's Brands Say About The Smoker

"Cigarette Seduction, Part II" with Alan Brody:

What The Smoker's Brands Say About The Smoker

(GENE BORIO, MODERATOR 1)

Alan Brody is a technology marketing journalist and entrepreneur who founded of the Marcom Awards, the high technology industry's leading advertising awards program sponsored by both ADWEEK and Advertising Age.

He produces the pioneering internet advertising conferences CreaTECH and HOLLYWEB. He is also a columnist who has appeared regularly in Advertising Age Creativity, ADWEEK's Marketing Computers, MacWEEK, Multimedia Producer etc.. . .

Since the 80s he has had a special interest in deconstructing the powerful imagery and appeals contained in tobacco advertising and packages. . . .

Last conference we talked of the power of cigarettes as an almost tribal initiation ritual for kids. Today's subject is the psychology behind cigarette brands, and each brand's unique pull for individual smokers

Just to kick of the questions, I'd like to ask: What is the appeal of such almost anti-ads such as Carlton?

(ALAN BRODY)

Well Gene, if I may, I'd like to summarize the part where we left off and then I'll come to the answer. Actually Carlton is not an initiation brands, i.e. teens rarely start with it so I would have to answer that a little later. The point of part 1 was that most teens begin smoking--or most PEOPLE begin smoking at a time when they are looking to gain acceptance into adult or early adult society. The basic argument about Cigarette Seduction correlates very closely to Robert Bly's Iron John--which is that American males have no way in which the inner knowledge of the society--or tribe--is passed on to youths. In his case, the book came out in 1990 he quickly became swept up in the feminist backlash argument etc. But the fact remains that we do not have an initiation procedure as do almost all other types of tribal societies--and this can be male or female. This is important because the age groups map exactly to the smokers' age groups and so does the process. In other words the vacuum has been filled by a number of cigarette brands. Difficulty in learning the practice (i.e. vomiting, coughing) the actual absorption of self damage as a concept of self-strengthening (Bly calls this taking the ashes) and then--and this is why we are meeting today--the assumption of an adult tribal identity. In some societies this would be a nom de guerre. In this society it is a cigarette bran.....so you might become a Marlboro person or a Camel person or a Newport person and so on. This is what we here to look into.

Do the Marlboro or Camel or Newport ads convey a particular knowledge to be passed on?

(Q) Does Marlboro and other brands have any meaning?

(ALAN BRODY) Yes. The Marlboro myth essentially enables a teen male to say that he identifies with the American fighting knight--not just a soldier but someone who knew how to handle himself in the frontier- where they were independent and made and upheld their own rules.

Obviously very people have all of those qualities but that is the dominant theme. The trick then is figure out the relationship of the smoker to the brand. In the case of people adopting a broadly popular brand you would assume they were something of a conformist...so you might ask yourself, why is this smoker saying they want to be tough like "everyone else"? Camel is more frankly sexual since the Camel represent the male genitalia, Newport has specific subtexts depending on whether the smoker is from the white, Hispanic or African-American communities.

(DAVE CUNDIFF, Moderator 2 ) Alan, what about cigarette length? Any messages there?

(ALAN BRODY) Let me take a moment to explain what we look at when we get into the interpretation game--the hermeneutics. The norm is always what sets the tone and any deviation from the norm is therefore meaningful.

With cigarettes, the king size 80 millimeter length. when people opt for a longer cigarette such as a 100 or the super long 120 mm length they are making a very strong statement and it can be interpreted in any one or a combination of the following. At the very simplest level you can assume these people are more ambitious or are expressing a greater yearning than might appear expressing a greater yearning than might seem obvious on the surface. They may also be overcompensating. For example a very short person might choose a very long brand and you would be right to consider that a kind on Napoleon complex. The other issue, as Ernest Dichter once said to Fortune, when Benson & Hedges, the original 100 mm length cigarette came out--"when we research smokers we assume they want to kill themselves--with 100 mm cigarettes they are choosing 8 bullets instead of six." In other words these smokers may also be quietly desperate.

(GENE BORIO) So, with the humorous ads, such smokers could be considered..."laughing at death?" A kind of desperate humor?

(ALAN BRODY) Well humor in cigarette ads is a much more complex phenomenon than in say, candy ads because it much more closely resembles gallows humor. John Leo, the lead columnist in US News & World report once did a study of a series of Newport ads which on the surface looked exactly that--humorous. But the sub text was as far from humor as you could imagine. They include violence between the sexes, symbolic forced sex, even images of strangulation.

When B&H did their "clever" billboards about smokers being put out on the wings of planes however, their humor probably backfired. The truth was too obvious. But we can get to that . Yes too desperate. Still, humor is generally a cover when it comes to this kind of advertising. A genuine subterfuge

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Gene: You might ask the smokers to describe themselves or their brands...if we have any smokers here. Does any one here smoke?

Would you like to mention your brand?

(BERNIE PERRY) Virginia Slims 120 .. and I'm tall Alan?

(ALAN BRODY) I guess this is an opening challenge. May I ask about how old you are and what brands if any you smoked before?

(BERNIE PERRY) 66 and before it was Benson Hedges 100

(ALAN BRODY) Well there are two possible interpretations. since you are tall you have no need to compensate for size but on the other hand, since tallness is unusual you may seek comfort in a longer cigarette. It may seem normal to you. As for the brand.....

(PETER EGGEBRECHT) 54 and smoke Pall Mall non-filters for 30 years

(ALAN BRODY) OK I'll get to Pall Mall in a moment. Going from Benson & Hedges to Virginia Slims is a statement that basically you have gone from simple womanly elegance to one of the subthemes of B&H) to a feminist statement. There are by the way some aggressive notes with B&H but that is only reflected by the era in which you began smoking them.

(ALAN BRODY) I'd tell you more if you are interested, then I'll go for Pall Mall.

(BERNIE PERRY) I note you assumes Virginia Slims was a second or third brand? I really thought I was smoking Long ones because they last longer and I don't smoke as close to the filter.

(ALAN BRODY) No, I was noting that Bernie migrated from B&H to Virginia Slims. I'm afraid that your interest in frugality is also associated with Ernest Dichter's remarks about the 8 bullets. You are probably taking something out on yourself--in other words blaming or punishing yourself perhaps needlessly. I'll go onto Pall Mall if you like...........

(BERNIE PERRY)Even though I'm constantly trying to quit?

(ALAN BRODY) Mark Twain once said "quitting is easy--I've done it hundreds of times." The reason quitting is incredibly different is because we tend to assume that smoking is just this one thing--a habit, or OK, an addiction. In fact, it is many things. When you quit you have to handle the psychological part entirely separately from the ritual part (the handling, the orality, the opening the pace etc.) and then you have to handle THAT separately from the plain addiction. One of the reasons is that the mind tends to replay unfortunate instances over and over again. And even if your quitting intentions are good if you don't confront the psychological issue--perhaps the trauma or deep anxiety--you will do what Mark Twain kept doing. Tell me when I can do

(BERNIE PERRY) Do Pall Mall. I'll just listen now.

(ALAN BRODY) Pall Mall was touted in the 50's as cigarette that was supposed to be safer because it was longer. This is a wonderfully absurd claim but people liked it because you could be "safe" and not have to put on a filter. So the first question I would ask a PM smoker is "how far down the cigarette do you smoke?" OK, in the absence of an answer let me say that just how far down the Pall Mall cigarette you go tends to indicate how much of a hypocrite or self-deluded you are. At the same time, the brand which sports British heraldry suggests a traditional type of person and the maroonish color--essentially a very mature or even rotted red suggests tiredness with the world. Even cynicism. The founder of 60 Minutes, Mike Wallace was a Pall Mall smoker until he quit. I have no idea how much of the cigarette he smoked.

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Peter's left. Too bad -- his was the Pall Mall question.

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Other questions or comments?

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Alan, can you go the other way predicting a brand from other information? An African-American colleague died this week...a forty-nine year old woman with chronic illnesses and a *very* heavy smoking "habit". I never noticed what brand she smoked... Would knowing the brand have helped me to help her?

(ALAN BRODY) Well, I'll gamely take a crack at it. Yes, it would have.

Let me give you some examples.

(ALAN BRODY) I know an editor who kept working for magazine--or I should say running magazines that went out of business. He smoked Merit at the time. Obviously, he was concerned about his own merits -- or editorial intelligence. Its worth knowing that you are in essence punishing yourself for that because I will guarantee you that all the Merits in the world will not make you one IQ point smarter. In the case of an African American woman, the norm would likely be a menthol brand. If it were then her choice of either Salem (likely), Newport (a little less likely) or Kool (least likely) is critical. If she chose not to smoke any of those--or not menthol at all--then the statement is extremely compelling especially since it contributed to an early demise. GA

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Compelling" in what way, Alan?

(ALAN BRODY) Well, let's say she smoked a brand that a Caucasian counterpart might have smoked--and this obviously hypothetical since I know none of the facts and certainly none the people in question--then she might have been responding to a general climate of racism or the lingering environment that a professional of color and of her gender may have had to face in what had once been an all white and male world. That is certainly one possibility. Another may have been a very personal one such a traumatic personal loss or even a divorce. The key here is when in their lives this occurred because the earlier you begin smoking the harder it is to quit and the more addicted you are likely to be--both physically and psychologically.

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Before I ask more questions...

I'd like to give others a turn. Anyone have questions or comments?

Bernie was very pleasant...although what you say about individual brand choosers...isn't always phrased in complimentary...or sympathetic terms. How do you use this knowledge...*either* to help smokers quit...or to influence public policy...or to do effective countermarketing?

(ALAN BRODY) To answer the first, I don't really mean to be unsympathetic but what tends to happen is that you realize you are dealing with a process of self-deception that is generally invisible to the person being analyzed. The other thing is that we are dealing with the negative side of human nature and it is inherently darkly absurd. As far as my use of it--none, I am simply a researcher and commentator thereof although it helps me deal with people.

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Does this research have any application in the physician's office? Or could it in my professional life?

(ALAN BRODY) It is possible to determine how people may respond. Well, you tend to see peoples' weak spots, their zone of self deception. As for public policy or antismoking ads--they can be potent.

(GENE BORIO) What about Parliament?

(ALAN BRODY) I was afraid you were going to ask that (BTW I did want to say that knowing each of these brands can help produce devastating antismoking ads but that is another issue). Parliament is a tough brand because its imagery is all over the place and womewhat obscure. In other words, it lacks a domninant image. Instead it has several so in many ways it is a brand of misfits--OK I'll be kind here--people that don't fit into the expected roles. The initial image, the V-like crest wast knowingly modeled after the Cadillac crest. In that regard, the age of the smoker is key because Cadillac has gone through a waxing and waning of prestige in the consumers minds. At one point it WAS a class act at another it was the land boat of the overage of oversize, cigar smoking, classless fatcat. You have decide where--if at all they fit into that spectrum. Then Parliament itlsef has this "mouthpiece" which tends to keept the smoker remote from the vile smoke of the cigarette. This can be an important clue. Finally there is the ad campaign which showns a couple (this is a unisex brand) in what looks like a greek island. Since Greece is the home of the Parliamentary democracy you mihgt wan tto consider if this means remote, escapism or a sense of traditionalism. Since in each case, the smoker makes an ironic or compensatory relationship with brand you have to determine what stament they ar emiking or what they are making up for. Finally, Parliament is also smoked by people who wish separete themselves from the herd with with what appears to be a "class" cigarette but costs exactly the same as others. I.e. the low-budget elitist. Does that help?

(DAVE CUNDIFF) I hope we'll be able to wind the conference down naturally to day but we need to be prepared for any event. There's so much here. Are you up for Part 3.

(ALAN BRODY) Sure. I hope I haven't chased out all the smokers. May I make a clsiing stateMay I make a closing state ment--a kind of mea culpa?

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Are there any final questions or comments from anyone?

Alan?

(ALAN BRODY) Yes I am, but I need to make cleansing statement....

(DAVE CUNDIFF) If no other feedback, then I think a closing statement would be fine but we *do* look forward to resuming the dialogue on January 11th.

(ALAN BRODY) I too was once a smoker so Jan 11th is fine. As a former smoker (Began at 18 quit at 30) I tend to look back on this the same way say a reformed car thief or helpless alcoholic looks upon their prior brenthren. We've beenthere and we know all the angles. So in all fairness, I am only saying what should have been said to me. Perhaps if people can get over the "friend" element of smoking, they see it as) a living companion that just cannot be criticized, they can deal with the real issues of quitting. When they have pulled out of the psychological malaise that really entraps, then the job of quitting is no more difficult) that say the job of learning to ski or ride a bike or giving up a bad work habit for something better. So I would like to proceed next time, if I may in theZen spirit of the sharp crack to the side of the head."

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Hmmm. I was thinking of how we are to use this knowledge in tobacco control .

(ALAN BRODY) The answer is that smokers ARE getting a psychological benfit from smoking and if we do not reveal that we cannot really help them. Its like pulling people away from an invisible form of life support. We need to make that form of life support visible first before we can help them pull away from it.

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Can ads do this? And do they have to target each brand's users?

(ALAN BRODY) Ads can but it is more about an overall awarenAds are really the end point of a process of strategic thinking--that is why ads can be so deeply interpreted. The same applies to dealing with this issue.

(RYAN SPANNUTH) I am smoking right now!!!

(ALAN BRODY) you need to have a deeply htought out strategically thought out system of--OK, well I hope the air circulation is good. The point is that in order for people to give up a product that does in fact have a kind of psychological value they have to know what that is. Ads can be a medium to do so but so can other, more subtle kinds of PR campaigns. For example the one thing most smokers would rather die than admit to is the very point that smoking gives them a psychological value.

(DAVE CUNDIFF) Go ahead, Ryan. Ryan dropped out for a Ryan left right after typing the question mark...I presume he'll return.

(DAVE CUNDIFF) So how to communicate this, besides ads.

(ALAN BRODY) Well that point alone is incredibly powerful because it tends to undermine the status value of the brand. That may not be an issue transla teable directly into ads, but it does make a huge difference if mental health professionals are brought out into the open to talk about this. It will not make smoking go away but it moves part of it into the open where it can be attacked or simply dealt with. So we could use....

(DAVE CUNDIFF) I see lots of parallels here with other mental health questions.

(ALAN BRODY) In other words, the typically approach--smoking is dangerous and undesirable. In other words we have accomplished the task of convincing most people that smoking is physcially harmful to them and 25% of Americans have responded by saying "so what?" Now we need to show that it is also psychologically worthless to them too.

(ALAN BRODY) OK Lets make this the focus of part 3: Now We Know--What Do We Do?

(DAVE CUNDIFF) If nobody has further questions or comments...I'd like to thank Alan, Gene, and all our participants...for another very informative session. I'd like to ask all of you to join us any time...in the "Tobacco and Alcohol" message section of the Public Health Forum (GO PUBHLTH) and I'd like to invite everyone to Alan's next conference tentatively scheduled for Saturday, January 11, 1997 at 3:30 pm. EST, here in the Conference Center. Thanks to all!

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