Cigarette Advertising in Magazines in Relation to Youth Readership
June 1, 1998
Cigarette Advertising in Magazines in Relation to Youth Readership
ABSTRACT & COMMENTARY
Synopsis: Cigarette brands that are popular among young adolescents are more likely than adult brands to advertise in magazines with high youth readerships.
Source: King C, et al. Adolescent exposure to cigarette advertising in relation to youth readership: An evaluation of brand-specific advertising in relation to youth readership. JAMA 1998;279:516-520.
Magazines receive the largest proportion of tobacco companies expenditures for advertising. In 1994, the tobacco industry spent $252 million or 40% of its advertising expenditures on advertisements that appeared in magazines. King and associates from Boston examined whether brands smoked by a significant number of adolescents are more likely to be advertised in magazines with high youth readership than are cigarette brands smoked almost exclusively by adults.
King et al selected 39 magazines for which there was information on adult and youth readership as well as information about brand-specific cigarette advertising. Cigarette brands were classified on the basis of data from the national Teenage Attitude and Practices Survey-II (TAPS-II). Youth brands were those smoked by at least 2.5% of 10- to 15-year-old smokers, and adult brands were those smoked by less than 2.5% of 10- to 15-year-old smokers.
Cigarette brands popular among adolescents were significantly more likely than adult brands to advertise in magazines with high youth readerships. For example, the estimated probability of an adult brand decreased over a range of youth readership. Adult brand advertising in a magazine with 4% youth readers was 0.73%. In magazines with 34% youth readers, adult brand advertising was only 0.18%. In contrast, the probability of a youth brand advertising increased from 0.32% for magazines with youth readers to 0.92% in magazines with 34% youth readers. King et al believe that there is widespread, heavy, and targeted exposure of youths to cigarette advertising in magazines and that public health considerations and a desire to reduce teenage smoking argue that cigarette advertising in magazines should be eliminated.
COMMENT BY WALTER R. ANYAN, Jr., MD, FAAP
A number of studies over the past decade have used indirect evidence to show that some cigarette advertising in magazines targets youth readers. Many of these studies did not take into account that most youth-oriented magazines have more adult than youth readers and, so, cannot exclude the possibility that the advertising targets adults instead of children. Second, previous studies only considered total rather than individual brand cigarette advertising. Teenagers tend to smoke only a few brands of cigarettes.
This careful study by King et al avoids some of the limitations of previous studies and shows conclusively that advertising in magazines of brands popular with teenagers was targeted to a youth population of magazine readers. King et al state that, at the heart of the current debate about interventions to reduce teenage smoking, is the question of whether cigarette advertising does influence youthful behavior. This study does not answer that question, but it does reinforce suspicions that the targeting of magazines and brands toward children has been a conscious attempt by the tobacco industry to do just that. (Dr. Anyan is Professor of Pediatrics and Head of the Adolescent Clinic, Yale-New Haven Hospital.)
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