Linking smoking with manliness, hero worship, high fashion, and the pleasures of love is being banned in television advertisements.
New rules, already in operation, were published yesterday by the Postmaster-General. It was explained that all advertising will be in line with the new rules by about the middle of next month.
The rules have been agreed between the ITA and the tobacco industry. Neither the ITA nor its advertising advisory committee wanted to exclude all cigarette advertising from television, but the industry has voluntarily withdrawn all cigarette advertising until about 9 p.m., to avoid influencing young people unduly.
Appeals to pride
The authority has now laid down the following five rules governing advertisements to be banned:
(1) Advertisements that greatly over-emphasise the pleasure to be gained from cigarettes;
(2) Those featuring the conventional heroes of the young;
(3) Appealing to pride or general manliness;
(4) Using a fashionable social setting to support the impression that cigarette smoking is a ╥go-ahead habit╙ or an essential part of the pleasure and excitement of modern living; and
(5) Advertisements that strikingly present romantic situations and young people in love in such a way as to seem to link the pleasures of such situations with the pleasures of smoking.
