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Anybody who works in advertising and marketing will tell you how important packaging is. How many times have you bought a product largely because you loved the way it was packaged? More times than you’d care to think, perhaps. Nothing makes goods go off the shelves faster than cool packaging. The role of packaging in making a product look desirable has not been lost on the tobacco industry in their attempts to attract people to cigarettes, the cigarette pack itself being a strong advertisement for cigarettes, as has been recently found by Cancer Research UK. Their researchers made a study of internal documents of advertising agencies that work for the UK tobacco industry, and found that possibly the most important channel is the pack itself. A lot of care is taken over the image of the pack, and even as a non-smoker, I find it evident that some cigarettes are packaged in a very attractive way.

This is where the concept of generic packaging comes in as another tool in the armoury to combat smoking. Generic packaging is simply plain packaging, with only the name of the cigarette brand on the pack, in plain lettering, with no logos, no use of distinctive colour. In addition to the name of the brand, there would be clear health warnings, and other mandatory customer information. It is thought that the generic packaging of all cigarettes will make them appear far less attractive to consumers.

This is why Cancer Research UK are calling for the generic packaging of cigarettes, and similarly pressure groups in other countries are calling for the same. Whether governments will implement this or not remains to be seen, given the huge lobby of the wealthy and influential tobacco companies.

Filed under: Tobacco packaging, Tobacco advertising