Big tobacco designs their retail advertising to specifically target kids.

• Kids are aware they are being marketed to: In a British Medical Journal study, 95% of 15-16 year olds surveyed were aware of tobacco advertising. All 15-16 year olds surveyed were aware of some method of point of purchase marketing.
   
• Kids visit convenience stores often - 75% of teenagers shop in convenience stores at least once per week.
   
• Kids are more than twice as likely as adults to recall tobacco advertising. A national telephone survey revealed that while only 23% of adults recalled seeing tobacco advertising the past 2 weeks, 55% of kids recalled seeing the advertising.

Big Tobacco knows it works and will greatly increase the likelihood that kids will try smoking.

• Marketing works - The conclusion that there is a causal relationship between tobacco marketing and smoking seems unassailable.
   
• Advertising works even better than Peer Pressure - Teens are significantly more likely to smoke due to advertising than they are due to peer pressure.
   
• Easy Access - A 2002 study showed that exposure to convenience store tobacco advertising causes teens to perceive significantly easier access to cigarettes, and to express weakened support for tobacco control policies. These findings suggest that convenience store tobacco advertising distorts adolescent's perceptions about the availability, use, and popularity of tobacco products.
   
• 7th Graders are receptive - the majority (70%) of 7th graders are at least moderately receptive to tobacco marketing materials. And children more receptive to marketing are also more susceptible to start smoking.
   
• Teens are significantly more likely than adults to be influenced by advertising and promotion in convenience stores (73% to 47%). In-store displays (51%), banner/window signs (47%), and in-store promotional signage (44%) are the convenience store advertising/promotional methods most likely to influence teen purchases. These methods only have 36%, 33%, and 32% likelihoods (respectively) of influencing adult purchases.
   
• Kids are attracted to it - An estimated 1/3 of adolescent experimentation with smoking can be directly attributed to tobacco advertising and promotional activities. Perhaps this is because tobacco advertising is so attractive to kids: nonsmoking children that have a favorite cigarette ad are two times more likely to begin smoking in the future than those who do not.

Tobacco companies won't stop until we make them because they know that brand loyalty need to start young!

"[T]he base of our business is the high school student."
- Lorillard Tobacco Company Executive, 1978.

• The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) was established to reduce children's exposure to tobacco advertising, and yet...
   
• In the year following the MSA coming into effect, there was no significant drop in retail store tobacco ads placed less than 3.5 feet from the ground, there was an increase in both prevalence and extent of exterior store signage, and there was a significant increase in point-of-purchase promotional activity.
   
• Among adolescents, the advertisements most likely to be seen, to be liked, and to be viewed as making smoking more appealing, are for the brands most commonly smoked by adolescents, Camel and Marlboro. Over 40% of adolescents feel that Marlboro ads make smoking more appealing, and nearly half feel that Camel ads make smoking more appealing.
  
• Each day, more than 4,000 kids try smoking for the first time, and another 2,000 kids become regular daily smokers. 85% of these youth smokers prefer Marlboro, Camel, and Newport - three of the most heavily advertised brands.

"Marlboro's phenomenal growth rate in the past has been attributable in large part to our high market penetration among young smokers-15 to 19 years old-my own data, which includes younger teenagers shows even higher Marlboro market penetration among 15-17-year-olds."
- Philip Morris report, 1975.

Read this Guest Editorial in the Binghamton Press and Sun Bulletin about the
Broome County Legislature's role in helping to reducing tobacco ads targeted at children:

Press and Sun Bulletin GUEST VIEWPOINT; Reduce tobacco ads at retailers
By Marcus Mohalland April 30, 2008

On March 20, the Broome County Legislature supported a Point of Purchase (POP) resolution that encourages retailers to decrease overall tobacco advertising in their places of business and to eliminate tobacco advertising from areas likely to be seen by children. Broome County Reality Check applauds the effort to protect local youth who see tobacco ads and is encouraged to smoke.

With increasing public support for the reduction of tobacco ads, especially here in Broome County - where 64 percent of residents surveyed by an independent statistician agree or strongly agree that tobacco advertising contributes to the number of youth that experiment with smoking - steps are being taken by Tobacco Control partners to get municipalities to support the reduction of tobacco advertising.

With teens significantly more likely than adults to be influenced by advertising and promotion in convenience stores (73 percent to 47 percent), and 70 New York residents dying each day from their use of tobacco, the state Department of Health has made the reduction of tobacco ads at retailers a priority. For more information about reduction of tobacco advertising, visit www.exposebigtobacco.com.

Mohalland, a Binghamton resident, is coordinator of Broome County Reality Check.

Copyright © Press & Sun-Bulletin. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc

Download a copy of the September 2007 Report, Retail Advertising and Promotions for Cigarettes in New York (PDF, 249KB, 32pg.)

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