French anti-smokers try irony

Campagne anti tabac - Toxic corp

This is a commercial from a clever new French campaign to persuade teenagers that it really is not cool to smoke. The message says: "Tobacco kills one smoker in two. The tobacco industry is counting on you to replace them."

France was one of the first countries to ban tobacco advertising and require schools to apprise children of the dangers of cigarettes. The anti-smoking campaign has over the past few years made an impact on adults, but youngsters have proved deaf to persuasion. I caught my 13 year old daughter with a packet of Malboro the other day and my son, 16, hangs out with friends who think it's hip to light up. To get the picture, you only have to pass the gates of a lycée (senior high school) and see the crowds of teenagers striking poses with burning clopes between their fingers.

The "Smoking kills" label on cigarette packs does not impress them. Smoking is sexy and adult for them, and perhaps the more so because it involves transgression. 

The statistics prove the point. Only 29 percent of the French between 25-75 years old smoke, but 42 percent of those from 15-24 do so. Only 54 percent of the young group say they want to give up, against 62 percent of the others.

The idea of the National Institute for Prevention and Health Education (INPES) and the Anti-tobacco Alliance was to try to co-opt the kids with a parody of corporate advertising to show how the industry tries to hook them. They invented the Toxic-Corp cigarette company and set up a Second Life-style site in which your avatar can interact with other visitors. The up-beat television and internet commercial says: "You're young and healthy. Join Toxic Corp and become a replacement smoker... Your naivete and your inexperience are a real plus for us...Replace today one of our faithful (dead) smokers."

Bruno Dubois, an eminent public health professor who heads the Alliance Against Tobacco, said they had struck a deliberately cynical note. "We have angled it on humour and irony, which the young decode perfectly. Kids are not sensitive to the traditional language of public health. You can't convince them to stop smoking by telling them that they risk having cancer in 30 years time."

We'll see if it works. Teenagers are usually pretty good at seeing through adults' attempts to talk their language so I wouldn't be too optimistic about this campaign. Things might improve if the youngsters' "role models" smoked a bit less. Cigarettes are still an essential part of life for many French musicians, writers, actors and, of course, school teachers. 

The next crunch comes in February when smoking is to be banned from cafes, bars and restaurants. The ban in the work place, introduced last February, is working pretty well and is credited with a sizeable fall in the adult smoking population.

Comments

[FrançoisB]

Cette pub est vraiment géniale. Grande première dans la lutte anti-tabac. IL faut aussi essayer de voir le sketch "la cigarette" de Gad ElMaleh, un monument!!

[azloon]

high school smokers in arizona are 'marginalized' by being forced to smoke before and after school 'off' the school property, across the street. signs on school property announce: "this is a drug-free zone" (tobacco falling into that category, tho presumably exempting caffeine in the teachers lounge).

i can't think of smoking (which i did until age 27 when i married, thus securing an alternate form of oral satisfaction) without thinking of the brand "gauloise." are those things still around?? smoking one of those things with others closeby was not too much different than defecating in public.

[Frank Schnittger]

CB - the video isn't accessible for me - is there a technical hitch?

"Only 29 percent of the French between 25-75 years old smoke, but 42 percent of those from 15-24 do so. Only 54 percent of the young group say they want to give up, against 62 percent of the others" - CB

Why do young people seek to emulate the 29% of 25-75 year olds who smoke, rather than the 71% who don't, or indeed the 54% of young smokers who say they want to give up?

The answer has to be partly the "rebel" image of those who refuse to conform. If you can paint the smokers as the true conformers, the ones who have the greater need to appear cool whilst in reality they are just being duped by advertising, you have some chance of success.

I was the ultimate contrarian in school. Everone was smoking so I didn't just so as not to conform. You have to play on the complex psychology of young people wanting to appear different and unique, whilst at the same time actually being incredibly conformist out of insecurity and a need to feel accepted.

If young people achieve greater camaraderie out of hanging out with a group of smokers than they can elsewhere, then they will smoke. The absence of a counter culture means there is no alternative outlet for those who feel less than accepted or valued by those in authority - teachers, parents, other "successful" kids.

Improving self esteem is key to tackling drug abuse (and self abuse) of all kinds. Smoking (and the cameraderie associated with it) can become a substitute for the self-esteem that comes from being good in class, good at sport, good with the girls etc. (sorry Azloon!).

If you create a competitive society, you have to accept that many will fail. Kids love to compete, but it is how the "significant adults" in their lives deal with those who "fail" that determines their vulnerability to drug dependency and other self destructive behaviours.
[Frank -- I've fixed the video link, I think. Try again. CB]

[Liz]

I saw this ad for the first time last night and I thought it was very good. Whilst studying almost all of my (French) friends smoked but now I'm living in Paris and the only people I know who smoke are a couple of colleagues. I can't wait for the ban to come into force! Was eating in a great café the other day but was ruined cos they put the non-smokers upstairs so the smoke from the cigarettes rose up.

Just an aside though, what to do about the people who refuse to put their fags out in the office? My boyfriend's bosses all smoke during meetings and as the newbie he feels too uncomfortable to say anything.

[azloon]

"Smoking (and the cameraderie associated with it) can become a substitute for the self-esteem that comes from being good in class, good at sport, good with the girls etc. (sorry Azloon!)." Frank

Frank, not certain what you refer to. my post today?

i was pretty good in school, pretty good in sports, pretty good with girls. AND i smoked (from age 16).

yes, i thought it was 'cool,' and eventually became habituated (addicted) and dependent on the temporarily calming effect.

my observation is that people with addictive personalities (not necessarily addicts) tend toward dependency on SOMETHING -- tabac, alcohol, sex, money. sarko and clinton appear to me to be in this category.

these people tend to be 'high energy,' easily bored, bright and risk-taking. such kids will always be part of the mix. if it isn't tobacco, it will be bungy-jumping, fast cars, whatever. i am not condeming anti-tobacco efforts, just saying that 'people are people.'

i think suggesting that people without addictive tendencies, or don't indulge them, have higher self-esteem is questionable. they do get themselves in less trouble than the addictive types, but, higher self-esteem? a little too 'airy-fairy,' and judgemental, for me.

all this being said, smoking is no doubt one of the worst things to do to satisfy addictive tendencies.

i speak as one having them although less "in their grip" than when i was younger. i think one outgrows most addictions if not killed by them.

[rocket]

Love it Charles!! Always light fluff. Bon enfant quoi! I did a piece on this several years ago when the debate about hard hitting advertising in "anglo saxon countries versus light fluff in France was "du jour"

We want pictures of lungs rotting before our eyes!!!!

A short summary

"You'll have a better chance getting what you want if you: cajole, charm, coax, seduce, butter up, sweet talk, flatter and any other designation of the above that you may be able to provide which will get your message across on a bed of fluffy, soft, sweet rose petals and kitten soft fur.

Remember, you have to soft sell the French because hard sell messages are too often a sign of our “gangster” mercantile American society. "

all the best

[John Gregory Flinn]

"Smoking is sexy and adult for them, and perhaps the more so because it involves transgression."

Initially maybe, but for most cigarette smokers it soon becomes an addiction, and a habit difficult to kick.
That's the problem.
It leads to all kinds of subterfuges just to get a 'drag' as most smokers will admit.

Neither the current campaign nor your blog actually mentions the addictive nature of smoking cigarettes yet it is this habit-forming quality that can lead to the damage later on.

Perhaps a campaign highlighting this aspect of a craving, and the associated indignities to one's self-esteem of having to have a 'drag' in the toilets to satisfy it would have more effect on lycéens.
However I suppose some lawyer might be able to argue against such a campaign because not everyone gets the habit.

[Edward Johns]

Yes, an excellent advertisement. I don't suppose we would see its like in the UK because of the enormous tax revenues that accrue from tobacco sales.

[Frank Schnittger]

Nothing personal, Azloon! Positing the existence of an "addictive personality" can be just as "airy-fairy" as positing low self esteem as a contributory risk factor to smoking behaviour. There are of course many other risk factors, such as the attitude and behaviour of parents, older siblings and other role models generally.

John Gregory Flinn is of course right to note the fact that smoking/nicotine can be, in itself, chemically addictive. However I have always been more interested in the behavioural determinants of who smokes and who does not, and in particular, why they STARTED smoking.

It is far more difficult to stop smoking once you have started, so the key is to discourage people from starting in the first place. Kids will always want to experiment, but few people enjoy their first smoke, any more than they enjoy their first alcoholic drink. So why do they persevere if it is not seen as the cool or "adult" thing two do?

My experience, particularly with the harder drugs, is that low self-esteem is the most pervasive factor in determining who goes beyond the early experimentation phase. Hereditary factors also play a role - alcoholism often runs in families - but it is unclear how much of this is genetically induced and how much it is transmitted by psycho-social conditioning.

[Monika]

Really excellent ad!
And I am quite astonished aboute that ironic tone of it. Everytime I tried some irony on my French collegue they didn't get it.

...

... well, perhaps my irony was just bad :D

[Helen]

"To get the picture, you only have to pass the gates of a lycée (senior high school) and see the crowds of teenagers striking poses with burning clopes between their fingers."

Along with their teachers! And before the smoking ban, the smoking kids would be mingling with the smoking teachers in the schoolyard.

[Barrie Garfinkel]

As an American living in the south of France for 5 years, I find it hard to see the rationale for the furious puffing I see every time I go to the little bar in my very small village.
When the new "no smoking in bars" ban begins on the 1st of February, next year, it will be my honor to print the NO SMOKING signs in all the languages necessary and I'll be happy to sit inside the bar during the winter months and be able to go home and not smell of tobacco all night. My last cigarette was in 1989 and I've never missed them.
If my bosses were smoking in front of me at work, I'd take out my trusty water pistol and attack. No job is worth humiliation.

[azloon]

Frank --

sounds as though you may have worked professionally in the addictions field, or have studied smoking behavior.

i do get your 'airy-fairy" objection, and i don't pretend it's any easier to identify an 'addictive personaity' than it is to quantify 'self-esteem.' i think both are slightive illusive concepts.

BUT, trying to stop extensive experimentation with tobacco (not just a puff or two) is a tall order. i believe children who persist in smoking were probably born to do it. and even some who don't WERE born to do it, BUT manage to resist starting. and this would be the one side of the social conditioning component you speak of.

i smoked from age 16 to age 28, and managed to quit after trying ten or twenty times. the statistics CB cites suggests this twenty-something smoking pattern is not uncommon. we who smoked knew it would kill us evertually. we just thought we could do it for awhile and 'get away' with something. apparently some of us were right. (i was not the slight bit interested in the $500 my tobacco-addicted parents offered me if i didn't smoke until i was 21.)

i place heridity (or something closely related to it) high on any list of contributing factors to addiction. i have family knowledge of this. i have read of EEU studies showing the irish to have the highest rate of teenage alcoholism in europe, and also the highest percentage of adults who are teetotalers. so, it would seem that genetics are involved somehow, though socio-religious factors are probably contributing something, if nothing more than a bad example.

it's worth trying but don't go out and hang yourself if your kids smoke. all three of mine did, tho two have quit (the two over thirty).

[Valentin]

"... well, perhaps my irony was just bad :D"

... or maybe they just pretended not getting it :P

[christopher muir]

Let's hope that teenagers respond positively to this well thought-out campaign. Somehow, the fact that smoking cigarettes is still a world-wide legal activity is surprising. The universal thinking seems to be that governments are not willing to forego the tax revenue derived from sales - weird logic when you consider the enormous health costs brought about by the habit.

It seems fair to ask if any of the raging Greek forest fires were ignited by careless smokers tossing their little paper missiles into the vulnerable, dry countryside.

[Daniel Strohl]

Azloon,

"i think one outgrows most addictions if not killed by them".

Yes, but one should not forget that "in a given person, the sum of all vices is a constant" (quote from a former Danish colleague)

[Ros]

Charles, if I may be allowed to criticise you (for once) - you do sometimes have a tendancy to put things and people into "categories".
e.g. "Cigarettes are still an essential part of life for many French musicians, writers, actors and, of course, school teachers." Now why should these people be chosen - why not add journalists
while you're about it?. I'm pretty sure no school teachers smoke inside their schools - a writer is usually alone and (for the moment) can do as he likes!
I certainly agree with the ban in offices - an office is a place where one is OBLIGED to be & has no choice. But if you walk through Paris, you can't miss the large groups of smokers having a "smoke break" outside - so this ban is definitely working.
As for the café ban on february 1st - I think this will be very interesting and almost unpredictable - maybe it will work in Paris but as for the small provincial villages such as mentioned by Barrie Garfinkel , I'm not so sure. Before coming to Paris, I lived for many years in the country 5kms from a small southern village - in february I shall go back to the (one & only bar-tabac-café) & see what's going on.
I wouldn't dream of changing the subject NOW but one day we should have a Blog about alcool?

[Ros]

Edward Johns , Yes, there are anti-smoking adverts in uk - here's just one but have seen quite a few others on BBC channels. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG2Sacg7bFc

[Maggie Millington]

It worries me when I see the kids outside the schools too, puffing & trying to be oh 'so grown up '.
The simplest way to stop this & something that should have been done years ago , is to the raise the legal age for smoking. Yes I know they would still have a furtive fag , but at least it would reduce the public smoking.
I never understood why governments had the legal age of 18 for alcohol but 16 for the known killer disease from nicotine. Why are they not the same ?
Would it be a sop to the huge tobacco market by chance ?

[Terry]

As a non-smoker, I have always been fascinated by smokers and the reasons why people/kids smoke.

Frank said: "If you create a competitive society, you have to accept that many will fail."

I agree that kids compete. But I think that the competition is for boyfriends and girlfriends at least when they start hitting 12 years old. Being "popular", a good athelete etc. all those activities seemed to be for the purpose of being sexually attractive. I saw a "back to school" advert for jeans for some 12 year old girl on t.v. last week. The message was that "Bobby" will like you if you are wearing these jeans when you go back to school. It was rather disgusting in my opinion. But do the advertising people have it wrong? There is a lot of sexual tension in those years. Smoking cigarettes says you are grown up. And what do grown ups do? Girls (and boys) who smoked in junior high and high school were known to be sexually active. I think that is the message teenagers are sending when they smoke. And this is probably why the CB's ad wont work. Lung cancer is too remote. The benefits of smoking beat a dirty magazine.

As for later years, I do not know why people smoke. Stress relief, perhaps. I have noticed that smokers are their own fraternity. It's a great icebreaker for singles. My friend smokes. Women walk up and ask for a smoke and then they chat. And vice versa. It's better than "Hey babe.."

One last thing, one of my favorite subjects is how cigarettes became the second (and sometimes first currency) of europe and other places during WWII. My neighbor was an engineer in a merchant ship. Before leaving the U.S., he would fill his room up with hundreds of Lucky Strike cartons. He didnt smoke. In europe, he traded them for expensive cameras and other high ticket goods.

[azloon]

"in a given person, the sum of all vices is a constant"

Daniel. a wise man, your danish colleague.

the propensity toward vice seems to 'float" from one arena to another.

[Edward Johns]

Ros,
thanks for the link to the UK anti-smoking piece, I probably didn't make myself clear enough when I referred to "the like" of the new French advert--what I meant was a subtle, pitched at the right level piece of communication as opposed to the UK's relatively 'official / establishment' piece of 24 hour news-channel televisual wallpaper which to me lacks any impact or urgency.

[Ros]

Edward Johns:
You will be as pleased as I am to know that have just heard on the Radio4 "Today" programme that the government has decided to put "graphic images" on cigarette packets starting in october. If you go into the site http://www.ash.org.uk/ & then click on "download pictures " or similar (I'm afraid I've already forgotten the exact words!), you can see these images in PDF - I didn't look at them all but some are certainly very shocking.
If you want to "listen again" to the discussion on "Today", you must go into their site, click on 7h to 7h30 am and then WAIT -it takes a good ten minutes to come up. A Professor West from Cancer research uk was speaking and seemed to approve.

[Ros]

Sorry to start again - but I also heard that 40% of cigarettes sold in uk are smuggled & are bought for half price. It seems that a partial solution would be to come down really hard on these "smugglers" & at the same time increase drastically the price of legal cigarettes - of course, on the face of it, this does seem "unkind" to smokers but......

[terry]

"Sorry to start again - but I also heard that 40% of cigarettes sold in uk are smuggled & are bought for half price."

This is also happening in the U.S. When you tax something as ridicously as we tax cigarettes here, a black market develops. We actually have people running cigarette cartons in vans up from Virginia illegally to avoid taxes. The police were so happy that they recently busted someone running $600K worth of cigarettes into NYC.

I have never smoked. But is it the government's role to tax cigarettes out of business? There is nothing unlawful about smoking. If it is such a dangerous substance, why is it not banned? Why do many marijuana smokers want to ban cigarettes but want cannibus to be legal? Last year, the state of new jersey made 20 million dollars less money on the cigarette tax even though more people are smoking. That's because the state is driving people to buying on the black market to purchase their smokes. What is New Jersey's solution? Raise the cigarette tax some more. This is why the nanny state really needs to butt (get it?) out regulating smoking.

Does France tax cigarettes?

[rocket]

another take on smoking

http://tinyurl.com/37dcya

Terry - yes France taxes cigarettes very very heavily. Until recently however enforcement of no smoking rules was widely not practiced. It's beginning to change and next Feb it will be totally outlawed to smoke in French cafes and restaurants so we'll see what happens. In any case, now the air in office buildings is much more breathable.

[Ros]

"This is also happening in the U.S" says TERRY - I know many smokers in south of France who also buy "smuggled" cigarettes from Spain where they are much much cheaper. Those who live near the spanish border only have to take a trip across & stock up - but then why shouldn't they ,when you see so many Brits going back on Eurostar with quite a large quantity of wine?

[Juliette]

"It's beginning to change and next Feb it will be totally outlawed to smoke in French cafes and restaurants"

I thought it was in january

[Ros]

Whether it be january or february - I very much doubt if it will work.Probably at least the smoking and non-smoking areas will be more clearly defined but not much more than that.

[Joan]

I spend several months a year in Paris, and I certainly hope the smoking ban for restaurants goes into effect successfully next February. It is impossible to escape drifting smoke in a French cafe, especially in winter when the fronts are closed up. Smokers are wilfully inconsiderate of nonsmokers--they hold the smoking thing in a limp wrist away from themselves and their companions, letting the smoke blow right into the faces of the people behind or beside them. Nonsmoking areas just don't work. There has been a lot of positive press in France about how to give up smoking--e.g., good article in Paris Match last spring--it just may work. The Metro seems to be free of it now. Smoking killed my father, as well as his father and his two brothers, the latter three before they were 50--I do my best to stay away from the smoke.

[dot king]

Heard on today's news, the areas just outside bars and cafés are becoming heaped with dog-ends, so the ban on indoor-smoking in public places is working, or so it would seem, and for the moment.

I think Azloon forgot blogging in his list of addictions!

I've never smoked, was handed a ciggie once in the loos of a teenage dance club (the boy I fancied was dancing with someone else - I was thought to be in need of a cigarette) and it was the foulest thing that I'd ever tasted - apart from codliver oil. So that was that.

Much later, a Chinese acupuncturist told me that one of the reasons people smoked was that they lacked fire in their set of the five elements. (In Chinese medicine a balance of earth - fire - water - wood - metal) She was a smoker herself. It seemed as plausible in those terms as any other more usual explanation available without, of course, discounting them.

The only other time in my life that I smoked was once when I spent a whole night sitting talking over old times with a university friend who smoked; I don't understand why, but cigarette for cigarette, I smoked. Couldn't get rid of the taste for days afterwards. buerk!

The anti-smoking ad is excellent, I hadn't seen it up to now.