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| Source: http://microeconstengyong101.blogspot.com |
To stop people from severely hurting themselves by smoking, the government has imposed some harsh laws on advertising for cigarettes. The U.S Food and Drug Administration, a federal agency for the U.S, has stated the laws for which Tobacco Companies have to abide to in the U.S. These laws restrict the influence these products have on the consumers in America today.
These laws, stop “Manufacturers, retailers, and distributors” from “sponsoring any athletic, musical, artistic or other social or cultural event, or any entry or team in any event, in the brand name, logo, symbol, motto, selling message, recognizable color or pattern of colors”. This basically halts all advertising of cigarettes, because no symbols, images, words or anything relating to cigarettes can be on their advertising. So it’s not that they can’t put up a poster, it just can’t be anything about their company at all. I think the only way to get around this for cigarette companies is to get free advertising in the news, to somehow get the news companies to talk about them. Through a political endorsement, or just by saying something positive or negative, because advertising, even if it is negative, is still advertising.
Similarly, the FDA prohibits selling of nothing “other than cigarettes or smokeless tobacco that has the brand name, logo, symbol, motto, selling message, recognizable color or pattern of colors". This limits the company to tobacco products and ONLY tobacco products. This restricts the spread of their grasp, only to the main product they make (tobacco and cigarettes). To make this clearer, Marlboro, one of the biggest cigarette companies, cannot make for example, backpacks. This would violate the FDA regulations because they cannot have any symbol, message, or color scheme on anything besides their main product.
