One thing that I’m glad that is an artifact of the analog age is billboards advertising smoking. Yes, they were influencing people to get addicted to a product that would cause cancer and eventually kill them, but what was worse was how lazy the advertising was. They had the lamest and ugliest ads. A lot of them were just a guy standing there and he wasn’t even smoking! Some were just of the name of the cigarette company , or even just a scene that had nothing to even do with smoking. The classic was the cowboys who were on the prairie wrangling up cows. Now were they smoking? No, and they probably weren’t even cowboys. Those advertisers got so complacent just because they didn’t even have to do anything to sell their clients’ product. They were a disgrace. I’m glad that Joe Camel is dead and hopefully lost forever.
Eh, I was never really one for peer pressure and I grew up with smoking ads like this all the time and I never picked up the habit. Was it the companies’s intent to try and get people to smoke? Well duh, yeah, but at the end of the day everyone has to take personal responsibility for what they do.
my favorite is the Flintstones commercial where Barney and Fred let the wives do all the work while they go out back and have a smoke.
I’m in Jarman’s camp here. I suppose what make it more ironic for me is having wore cigarette brand T-shirts in school and still never became one!
I think it was to sell to current smokers more than new smokers. It was all, “Look how cool these people are! They smoke like you!”
I specifically remember one where the guy had a sousaphone. It was saying, “Hey! This guy’s lungs are fine!”
When I saw the post title, I honestly thought you meant “smoking billboards” as in
billboards that actually smoked. Who doesn’t miss those? They’re as American as…um, Arrow shirts and billiard halls! But no, you’re absolutely right. And in fact, I’m happy to give up that billboard in Times Square in return for being rid of all other cigarette advertising.