Plain Packaging for Cigarettes Reduces Smoking

Canada is following the UK and Australia to implement a plain packaging law for cigarettes. Each day I hear a tobacco-paid commercial on the radio, which tries to convince people that this is a bad measure because it will promote illegal cigarette sales. That's the lame argument the cigarette companies have. Who cares about getting people to stop smoking cigarettes, the bad thing is that they are going to lose sales to illegal "Indian" cigarettes.

Tobacco Labelling Resource Centre

In May 2016, the UK and Ireland introduced plain packaging. Australia already did so in December 2012. The idea was to make cigarettes less appealing for potential new smokers, but it also has reduced the number of existing smokers. Australia experienced a record decline from 2010 to 2013, with daily smokers in the population dropping from 15.1% to 12.8%. After the policy changed more people were calling into quit helplines.

It seems when there is no identity to the product to feel like you're part of that identity, this makes it less appealing. Imagine Nike, Adidas, and many other apparel identity labels not being visibly present on the clothing. How many people would actually still buy from these companies if that popular logo was not there for them to identify with?

People's affinity towards a particular brand is associated with social identity, according to a study headed by Hugh Webb at the Australian National University in Canberra, and recently published in the journal Addictive Behaviors Reports.

With identification to something that is shared by others, there is a sense of belonging. Many people view themselves as a "PC person", while others see themselves as a "Mac person". By choosing a brand and identifying with it as part of yourself you feel connected to others who also do the same.

Webb adds:

"Marketers are extremely savvy about cultivating these brand identities."

After tobacco advertising was banned in several countries in the 90s and afterwards, the fonts and imagery on cigarette packs were the only way to appeal to specific groups and generate brand prejudices and stereotypes for people to favor or dislike. With the introduction of plain packaging, the positive brand stereotypes are in decline.

The sample size is small for the study, with 178 smokers in the final survey, where they met the criteria before the policy change for plain packaging, as well as six months after the change came into effect. A 15 to 20 minute online survey about social factors influencing smoking was conducted in exchange for a AUD$10 voucher. Anyone who didn't smoke branded cigarettes daily, priority purchase plain packaging tobacco, or if they had already quit, where not eligible for the survey.

Adherence to any particular brand significantly dropped, as well as being less likely to relate positive traits like trendiness or sophistication. A decrease in brand identity predicted a higher likelihood of quitting. Those who did the follow-up survey as illegible participants who were still smoking, indicated they were more likely to attempt to quit, intended to quit in the future and were smoking less intensely.

People who most derived positive identity from their particular cigarette brand were the ones that were most affected by the intervention in changing the plain packaging. The study suggests that other policies that use mechanisms to try to get smokers to stop -- such as economic disincentives -- do not work as effectively as this method that targets people's identity and sense of self.

“We typically think that the primary drivers for why people smoke are individual personality traits or biological factors. But this understates the symbolic power of brand identities and brand stereotypes in maintaining smoking behaviour.”

Tobacco companies sell people a brand identity that redefines who they think they are, as a relation to what smoking means to them. Even at the workplace, people meet for smoke breaks and develop relationships based on that common ground that they are smokers which connects them through a collective identity.

Simon Chapman at the University of Sydney agrees on the success of plain packaging in Australia:

“It strips the ability of tobacco companies to propose to people that buying brand X will confer all sorts of interesting qualities to them.”

The study is a rare opportunity to see how brands influence and shape identity and behavior. The removal of brands from cigarette packaging shows us how things can change in our lives when we stop identifying parts of ourselves with something that isn't us.

The claims from cigarette companies that I mentioned earlier about increasing counterfeit cigarettes, or that it fuel smuggling rings, are unfounded by actual research. I see it as just another attempt by money-grubbing immoral people who don't care about making a product that kills people. They will say and deny what they need to in order to keep people buying their product and putting money in their pockets.

Something that might happen though, is a realignment of identification with smoking, not based on a brand identity, but to identify as "united smokers" in general. The degree of effectiveness in removing branding from packaging might be short lived as the identification process may shifts to a more universal identification with simply smoking, like simply being a "computer nerd", "gamer" or the like.

As much as I don't support centralized laws, this shows how deeply important psychology is in our lives in order to understand ourselves. When we don't understand ourselves, when we lack self-knowledge, we don't know who we are and think we are things that we aren't.

If people don't want to learn about self-knowledge, how would they ever detach from their false identification with cigarettes to improve their own health and lives?

If a society can't act as a community to stop harmful products from being sold, such as cigarettes, then is it valid to stop those companies from using marketing and advertising, colors, shapes and symbols, in order to entice and psychologically manipulate people into favoring smoking?

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References:

• Plain packets help smokers quit by killing brand identities
• 'Nothing to do with public health': Big Tobacco fights Canada's plain packaging plans
• "Smoke signals: The decline of brand identity predicts reduced smoking behaviour following the introduction of plain packaging", Hugh Webb, Addictive Behaviors Reports, DOI: 10.1016/j.abrep.2017.02.003

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2017-02-23, 5pm