TY - JOUR
T1 - Youths' understandings of cigarette advertisements
AU - Freeman, Dan
AU - Brucks, Merrie
AU - Wallendorf, Melanie
AU - Boland, Wendy
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by a grant from the Arizona Disease Control Research Commission (Grant #9803). The authors are solely responsible for the study's design, conduct, analysis, and interpretation of results; there are no competing interests to disclose. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the sponsoring institution. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Suzanne Martin and the many additional members of our research team who participated in data collection and coding.
PY - 2009/1
Y1 - 2009/1
N2 - This study addresses two questions: (1) when youths are exposed to advertisements for cigarettes, do they primarily see advertisements for brands or products, and (2) is there a relationship between youths' understandings of cigarette advertisements and their susceptibility to smoking? A sample of 271 participants ranging in age from 7 to 12 viewed a series of print advertisements that included cigarette and non-tobacco-related ads. While viewing each ad, participants were asked to indicate what they thought the advertisement was trying to sell. Responses were coded into one of three categories reflecting important differences in participants' comprehension of each advertisement - no understanding, product category understanding, or brand understanding. Results show that youths typically understand the type of product an advertisement is promoting; however, the levels of brand understanding observed for cigarette advertisements were low in an absolute sense, and significantly lower than brand understanding of non-tobacco-related advertisements. Results also show that understanding cigarette ads as promoting specific brands of cigarettes is positively related to susceptibility to smoking. Taken together, these findings provide a glimpse of the psychological mechanisms that may underlie the well established link between exposure to cigarette advertising and youth smoking.
AB - This study addresses two questions: (1) when youths are exposed to advertisements for cigarettes, do they primarily see advertisements for brands or products, and (2) is there a relationship between youths' understandings of cigarette advertisements and their susceptibility to smoking? A sample of 271 participants ranging in age from 7 to 12 viewed a series of print advertisements that included cigarette and non-tobacco-related ads. While viewing each ad, participants were asked to indicate what they thought the advertisement was trying to sell. Responses were coded into one of three categories reflecting important differences in participants' comprehension of each advertisement - no understanding, product category understanding, or brand understanding. Results show that youths typically understand the type of product an advertisement is promoting; however, the levels of brand understanding observed for cigarette advertisements were low in an absolute sense, and significantly lower than brand understanding of non-tobacco-related advertisements. Results also show that understanding cigarette ads as promoting specific brands of cigarettes is positively related to susceptibility to smoking. Taken together, these findings provide a glimpse of the psychological mechanisms that may underlie the well established link between exposure to cigarette advertising and youth smoking.
KW - Children and adolescents
KW - Cigarette advertising
KW - Perceptions and comprehension
KW - Susceptibility to smoking
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U2 - 10.1016/j.addbeh.2008.08.007
DO - 10.1016/j.addbeh.2008.08.007
M3 - Article
C2 - 18812253
AN - SCOPUS:55149105234
SN - 0306-4603
VL - 34
SP - 36
EP - 42
JO - Addictive Behaviors
JF - Addictive Behaviors
IS - 1
ER -