Advertisements are common activities in businesses mainly meant to inform the prospective buyers on the availability of commodity on sale to be purchased. They are also mainly established with the idea of informing the buyers on where they can conveniently find the product that is being advertised.
Adverts can sometimes be destructive both to the seller and the consumer of the same product and by far to the general public at large. Basing on these aspects it can be deduced that advertisements are necessary evils in the business regardless of their negative influence on the product producer, supplier or consumer of the same product. This in essence has the same application to the advertisement of the Camel cigarette where there is use of a lady wearing the fish net stockings on the packet of the cigar.
The advertisement of the cigar represented by the image of a lady wearing fish net stocking leaves a string of unanswered questions when viewed by a customer of the cigar. This advertisement is somewhat presented in an ad hoc manner and therefore May not convey the intended message and in fact it is hard to figure out what the advert was meant to pass to the entire public.
It is always the case with the prostitutes that wear the fish net stockings and the manner in which the woman with the fish net stockings is presented on the cigarettes packet conveys a totally different message, away from the could have been the intended message of the marketer to increase the sales and probably maximize the profits.
This advert has several implications on anyone who views or reeds it, one may think that the advert is promoting the sale of the stockings and not the intended cigar!
The advertisement in particular is also provocative and can act as an agent for moral decay because the woman on the packet is half naked and this nudity is what may lead to the youths aping the dressing style, especially the girls and therefore lead to increased cases of unethical behavior and immorality. It should therefore be put in mind that this advert is more of an evil to the public than an asset to the business because it could leads to the development of a generation with unethical behavior and uncouth mannerisms.
Though the advertisement is heavily worded and may attract quite a good number of the interested smokers, the phrase `pleasure to burn’ is not specified to who the message is intended for. It cannot be concluded that the message is meant for only the smokers because they are not the only people who will have the opportunity to read the advertisement. With this regard it can be concluded that the advertisement is not well represented because the targeted group is generalized yet the youths and the expectant mothers are not supposed to smoke.
It is also noted that the advertisement is basically insufficient in the content that it presents, this is because it clearly known to almost everyone that smoking results in lung cancer the eventual death of the smoker. It could have been appropriate if the side effects of the tobacco smoking were written in bold letters and a caution pasted on the packet to avoid the underage children from having an intention to have `pleasure to burn’ as the advertisement states.
The advertisement may also convey a message that if one smokes, especially the ladies, she will be as beautiful as the lady used to advertise the cigarette, this will encourage more youths to venture into competitive cigarette smoking and may eventually lead to many of them acquiring cancer and subsequently die. This advert in significance is not conveying the right message to the public as the customers and the general public will have a series of endless questions over the meaning or the intended purpose of the advert and will therefore come up with various interpretations which will ultimately not be in line with what the advert was specifically meant for and for which category of people in particular.
Cigarette smoking among the youths and the adolescents in particular has been rampant over the past years and there has been a need to fight this scourge. It therefore could have been advisable for the advert to specify the age limit for the people who are supposed to consume or smoke the advertised cigar. However, the advertisement seems to be totally off the fight and the goal of many health consultants in a bid to reduce cigarette consumption, this is clearly portrayed by the openness of the advert; it could have been confined to a particular group of people to make sure that there is drug or substance abuse by the youths.
Although the advert employed advertising techniques such as wit and humor; which is represented by the visual image of the woman wearing the fish net stockings, this will actually attract the attention of the prospective buyer of the cigarette, the message being conveyed is more of advertising the fashion style of the fishnet stockings rather than the camel cigar that is purposefully intended for the advertisement.
There is also notable use of glittering generality in the advert where the advert says `have pleasure to burn’ and `feel cool’ this is also actually a good advertisement technique which will actually attract multiple customer who may want to smoke but still the message being conveyed is not to the standard of specifically pointing out who the message is meant for. It therefore dawns on the prospective buyer to scrutinize the advert since if the buyer is not keen he or she may take the advert for granted and ignore thinking that it is promoting the sale of fashion clothing that the image on the packet is displaying.
It could have therefore more effective if the cigars image was larger than the lady accompanied by bold words of glittering generalization abut the cigarette, this could have been more effective and could have attracted more customers.
With regard to this case analysis of the camel cigarette advertisement it can be concluded that the advertisements are usually designed to meet the needs of the producer or the supplier, however, for the goals to be met, the is need to have the advertisement to be properly formulated and the targeted group highlighted, this will help the advertiser to ensure that the information intended to be directed at them is well presented and easily interpreted.
It should therefore be noted that for the advertisement to be effective, there is need to apply advertising techniques like wits and humor through the visuals and images displayed on the packets presented for the advert.
Apart from the use of the wits and humor there is also need to apply the glittering generalities and make the advert as much heavily worded as possible. This brings us to the conclusion that the camel cigarette advertisement did not convey the right message and that it did not specifically reach the targeted group.
References
Cook, H (1980). Profitable advertising techniques for small business. Entrepreneur Press.
Amoroe, L (2005). The global resistance reader. Routledge Publishers.
Gupta, S (2009). Branding and advertising. Global India Publications.
Walsh, P et al (1986). Indoor air quality. CRC Press.
Advertising techniques, Volume 18 (1983). ADA Publishing Co. University of Michigan.
