Cigarettes, Seduction, and The Flintstones

Cigarettes seem to be in the news again, NPR is doing a three part story this week. So now I have a good reason to post this old ad I found.  Now put aside the horrors of lung cancer and emphysema —yes they are real and then try to take the ad at face value.

Just think, thirty odd years ago on Madison Avenue, a group of advertising executives were trying to hash out the copy and images you see above. We have the good looking couple. The attractive woman is placed at the left—because we read left to right so she is the first thing you notice. Right below her chin we place the product. She is gazing intently into his eyes, as his sweet smelling smoke wafts just below her nose. Even without the ad copy, you know what’s going on here. But for the GED crowd, we will spell it out, “Blow in her face and she’ll follow you anywhere.”

Keep in mind, this ad was done after the 1971 government ban on television advertising for cigarettes. The ad above was their soft sell to play up the sex appeal of smoking. Before 1971, you could just sell flavor.

A less subtle, but much better indicator that we live in a different time is this little gem. It is an ad that ran in The Flintstones. For those of you too young to remember, the Flintstones originally aired in primetime in the 1960s and was in black and white. The pitchmen for Winston cigarettes are Fred and Barney.

Full disclosure: Geppetto is a non-smoker. Geppetto is of the “smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em” school of thought because he owns stock in Altria (the parent company of Philip Morris). Geppetto might be viewed by some as a hypocrite.