Using Fake News and Subtle Persuasion to Sell Cigarettes Introduction
Cigarettes were a great American success story. From earliest times tobacco was grown on the North American continent and was import to both indigenous people and the European settlers. The industrial revolution and automation made the cigarette the preferred method for consuming nicotine. World War I in particular helped to make cigarettes part of life in the United States. From early times, cigarette manufacturers embraced advertising as a way to increase their sales: first in print media and later on television. But the story of how cigarettes were sold to the public is not just a story of advertising. The industry enthusiastically adopted more subtle ways to encourage smoking. Working in tandem with the early pulbic relations guru Edward Bernays, companies sought ways to put cigarette smoking into the public sub-conscience. When they noted that women in the 1920's seemed to view cigarettes as a way to express freedom and equality, they embraced that and tried to reinforce that message using public stunts. They put cigarettes into movies and paid celebrities to smoke their brand of cigarettes. The message, not stated but implied, was that beautiful and glamorous people smoked, and wouldn't you like to be one of them? However, along with booming sales and the growing popularity of cigarette smoking came increases in cancer, and scientists took notice. Scientists started to publish research implicating smoking in higher death rates, and popular media picked up the story, creating an existential threat against the industry.
After this threat to sales, this manipulation of public desire to smoke took a more ominous turn in the mid 20th century. As evidence mounted that smoking would kill people through increased cancer rates, the tobacco industry started a conspiracy to fight belief in growing scientific evidence. They were largely successful for many years until finally the United States court system found them guilty of a criminal conspiracy.