Don't be a maybe*

Freedom or prohibition: when the Swiss people have to choose, they like to opt for the former. Good for the advertising industry and the free market economy. Products that are freely available for sale can be freely advertised in this country. However, things get tricky when it comes to products that are not freely available for sale, but are only allowed to be sold over the counter in most cantons above a certain age limit. Tobacco, for example.

It is already prohibited in Switzerland to target advertising for cigarettes and the like specifically at children and young people. Nevertheless, according to a survey conducted in the French-speaking part of Switzerland in 2013 and 2014, tobacco companies still manage to appeal to this clientele with their messages. With banners next to sweets in the kiosk, sponsored parties or social media appearances. To protect children and young people from the charms of such advertising, health organizations are currently collecting signatures for an initiative. Advertising that could somehow reach the young population anywhere should be banned, they demand.

Advertising Week was interested: What does the industry think about the proposed restriction of its own freedom? We received a few refusals from advertisers who did not want to comment on the subject. Because one makes oneself unpopular per se if one advocates a ban on advertising? Because you could upset potential clients? These are just speculations. The feedback shows: Most respondents reject the initiative.

The days when cowboys smoked at you from every street corner are long gone.

Of course, a lot has already changed in recent years. The days when cowboys smoked at you from every street corner are long gone. And yet the survey mentioned at the beginning of this article shows that the more subtle strategies - a sweepstake here and a logo there - are still very much effective. Those who now say that the responsible parties are the parents, who have to educate their children to resist the temptations of smokers are, in my opinion, making things too easy for themselves. Why should the environment in which children grow up counteract parental efforts against tobacco? The argument that advertising does nothing contradicts exactly what advertising stands for: Creating needs, convincing consumers, selling products. Of course (tobacco) advertising works. Otherwise, the numerous advertising agencies would have gone bankrupt long ago. And hand on heart: as children, didn't we all think it was cool how grown-up, wicked and satisfied the smoking advertising figures looked?

This does not change the fact that 9500 people die in Switzerland every year as a result of tobacco consumption. This means that 15 percent of deaths are attributable to the effects of this addictive substance. And anyone who has ever smoked knows how addictive nicotine is. Seducing children and young people, who are known to be among the most impressionable age groups, to even the slightest extent to something that could demonstrably shorten their life expectancy, meets only one thing with me: incomprehension. And the target group can also be reached with advertising that is not aimed directly at them, but is nevertheless registered by them. The advertising industry will certainly not go under if tobacco advertising is eliminated. It accounts for only 0.06 percent of the advertising pie (Jan. to Apr. 2018; source: Media Focus).

The (last) freedoms of the tobacco industry in honor. But the freedom of the more powerful still ends where minors in need of protection are endangered. In this case, priorities should be set correctly and a ban should be seen as a contribution to keeping people healthy. Whether or not the current smoking rate of 25 percent will actually fall, advertisers will no longer be able to accuse themselves of tempting one more person to smoke. And instead, they could think about how to transform the image of the cigarette as a symbol of coolness into what it is: a harmful addictive substance. Even if the industry disagrees here, in the case of tobacco advertising we should, for once, put prohibition above freedom. Not just maybe and a bit in a few areas, but completely.

* Marlboro advertising slogan

Ann-Kathrin Kübler, Editor Werbewoche