In the days when tobacco advertising was still not taboo, the rugged image of a casual, cigarette wielding cowboy was as popular as Rajinikanth’s cigarette flip. What was not so known was the fact that four of these Marlboro men met their death at the end of a cigarette butt. ‘Another Marlboro Man has died of lung cancer’ was a headline way back in 1995. After two decades and several policy undertakings later, the market for implicit marketing of tobacco products is still very much alive.
Before explicit advertising was stifled, the world saw ads with banners such as ‘I like my women like I like my cigarettes, slim and expensive’, and a series of cigarette posters with baby mascots saying things like ‘Gee Dad, you always get the best of everything’.
In 2000, India came out with the The Cable Television Network (Regulation) Amendment Bill completely prohibiting cigarette and alcohol advertisements. Even anti-tobacco ads were screened twice, including one of a father quitting smoking because of his child.
However, most of the time, these advertisements fail to convey the actual message to the people, feels the head of a production house. “These ads by the government are badly dubbed, are of poor resolution and often draw a lot of laughter from the audience.”
After the ban was imposed, product marketing found newer ways to attract eyeballs — from references in films to cigarette majors engaging in CSR activities. Activists say that tobacco majors went into product diversification and aggressively marketed them, but the focal point was to build the brand name of the major product — tobacco. “Student notebooks by a popular tobacco major are promoted in schools; and some of them sponsor competitions like spelling bee,” says Cyril Alexander, National Convener of the National Forum for Tobacco Eradication (NFTE). While this is against the guidelines of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC), he adds that this helps build the brand image and brand loyalty.
Mascots of a popular local beedi brand, for instance, now masquerade as promoters of energy drinks and courier services. While gutka was banned in many states, including Tamil Nadu in May 2013, a prominent brand’s other products are still generally considered a surrogate for tobacco.
Popular Culture
Though warnings have been made mandatory in movies whenever there is a smoking scene, many feel it has not been able to get the desired effect. For instance, superstar Rajinikanth’s inimitable smoking style created a huge fan following. And though he made an appeal to his fans to quit smoking on his 62nd birthday and tried to set a new trend by popping a chewing gum in a snazzy manner in Sivaji, the image that remains etched in the minds of fans is the one with a cigarette dangling casually from his mouth. This is the image that often gets reproduced in vintage posters, kitsch products and in the minds of the impressionable young generation.
In Bollywood too, films like Deewaar and Coolie branded Amitabh Bacchan as a ‘working class hero’ with beedi as part of his persona. “Cinema imagery has a strong influence,” says Dr E Vidhubala, Associate Professor, Cancer Institute, recounting an incident when the actor Dhanush was interacting with fans while making his rounds to theatres to promote his film. “He asked some of the children what they liked best in his movie and one young boy said he liked the way he smoked the cigarette with a swagger. Dhanush casually reprimanded the boy for choosing that scene despite many other interesting incidents in the movie, but the damage was done,” Vidhubala says.
Mohan Kumar, a medical professional, used to frequent a barber shop where an 18-year-old boy working there used to constantly chew tobacco. When Kumar advised against it, the boy retorted, “If Shah Rukh Khan can smoke, so can I. Why would he do it if it was harmful?”
According to a study by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the portrayal of tobacco in Indian cinema, Shah Rukh Khan incidentally has the highest number of smoking instances in cinema, closely followed by Rajinikanth. Across 275 films in 12 years, there were 109 smoking instances of Shah Rukh (4.43%) and 103 of Rajinikanth (4.18%).
While early portrayals of cinema showed the bad guy as the smoker, the study indicates that smoking among the good guys has risen sharply from 22 per cent in 1991 to 53 per cent in 2002.
Surrogate advertising is also a big way for cigarette brands to make their presence felt in movies — like seemingly innocent instances when the actor asks for a particular brand and camera focuses on the product among others. Activists are now pushing hard for disclaimers and reducing or removing smoking scenes to dampen their influence. For example, several Kollywood producers have been issued notice by the Tamil Nadu State Health Department for violating the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA).
After demands by activists, the Union government issued an order saying pictorial warnings and text should cover 85 per cent of the cigarette pack. The order is yet to be implemented.