this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
459 points (99.4% liked)

Technology

59429 readers
3058 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Tobacco companies fought it tooth and nail. Kept arguing it wouldn’t stop people from smoking.

They are right, people will not stop smoking only because the packaging is dull.

Well then why are you lobbying so hard against it? Obviously the only reason they will ever fight anything is because they think it will hurt their revenue. So whatever they oppose, I support.

Because they lost advertising opportunity.
People recognize the brand by the packaging before even reading the brand name. This way your country just make any type of advertising for the cigarettes useless. And maybe as a collateral effect some younger people will not start to smoke since they will not see the advertising, but as far as I know people don't start to smoke because the package is cool.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's more subtle than that. Obviously no one who already smokes is going to say "Oh, the packet isn't as pretty as it used to be, guess I'll quit smoking now."

It's about the big, long-term picture. Companies spend money on branding and advertising because it works. You create the perception that your product is for a certain type of person, which makes them more inclined to buy it. By making cigarettes boring, you make them less appealing, and on average less people will smoke.

The proof is in the pudding. Social attitudes to smoking in Australia have totally flipped within a generation or two. It used to be something that everyone did. It's now mostly seen as a gross habit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It’s about the big, long-term picture. Companies spend money on branding and advertising because it works. You create the perception that your product is for a certain type of person, which makes them more inclined to buy it. By making cigarettes boring, you make them less appealing, and on average less people will smoke.

Fine, but if that the point, a more honest (intellectually) thing to do would be simply ban cigarettes advertising. The way it is done seems to me something like "I want to ban this but I don't want to be the one that do it".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

We're way ahead of you mate, all tobacco advertising was banned in Australia 30 years ago. Plain packaging is just the latest in a long line of moves designed to de-normalise smoking, and the tobacco companies have fought against it every step of the way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's true in pretty much every developed country over the past 2-3 decades lmao. The US still has branded packaging but the social attitude towards cigarettes has also completely flipped from being something everybody (including children) did to being seen as gross. I don't see how this arbitrary law is shown to have any effect whatsoever.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I literally just googled "cigarette plain packaging effectiveness" and there's tons of articles analysing it and they all conclude that it has made a difference 🤷🏼‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

"Really guys, we just want to spend more money than we need to! This won't stop people from smoking, we just really want to spend more money to design logos, packaging, advertising, etc."

Come on, dude...