Case Study Research - The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002

The list of products that the 2000 First Things First Manifesto cites as being a waste of designers time contains cigarettes. Of all the products they listed, cigarettes are the only ones which cause direct harm to consumers, making them arguably the best example of work that designers should outlaw.

The TA&P Act 2002 was introduced by the UK Government in order to try and reduce numbers of people smoking, in order to save money on the NHS over a long period of time. The act was the catalyst for further measures to be introduced that severely limit where, when and how tobacco companies are allowed to advertise their products.

This logically meant that all tobacco companies had to cut down the amount of advertising they were doing, but because all the companies were doing this, they existed in a market that had the same level competitiveness as beforehand, meaning that all the companies were saving large amounts of money from their advertising budgets.

It is often suggested the primary function of tobacco advertising is to get consumers to switch their favoured brand rather than to attract first time smokers, as smoking is already embed within our society. If this is the case, then roughly the same number of people will be smoking, but at much less cost to the tobacco companies. A report by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public health in 2011 said that; 

"The relatively new restrictions in Canada, the United States, and the UK are promising steps toward the continued reduction of influence that tobacco companies have on smokers. However, additional bans/more stringent implementation of existing bans are especially needed on store advertisements and special price offers"

Which would suggest that it's not the clever branding or advertising methods that are controlling the consumers as the 2000 First Things First Manifesto suggests, but it's more to do with the price it's sold at.

This is an example of how a reduction in the commercial competition in a particular consumer area as is suggested by the 2000 First Things First Manifesto can cause no change in the consumerist attitude of the buyers of the product, but in fact benefit the commercial organisations that produce the products.

Sources

http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/tobacco-advertising
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3084464/