How Cigarettes Are Advertised in Magazines: Special Messages for Special Markets

Abstract

Tobacco companies have the ability to target their products to segmented audiences by advertising in specialty magazines. Segmentation is a means of providing audiences with ads appropriate to their behavior, demographic, and psychological characteristics. A content analysis of 10 popular magazines demonstrates that Black and youth-oriented publications have received an increasing number of cigarette ads since 1965. A logistic regression of romantic content that compared trends over time to the general growth of specialized magazines indicated that the incidence of horseplay and coy model poses has increased over time. whereas the incidence of eroticism has remained relatively stable. In accord with psychographic theories, significant content differences are found in magazines read by different market segments: Horseplay is usually targeted at female, poorer, and younger readers; overtly sexual appeals and coy model poses are aimed at female, Black, and poorer readers more often than at men or general aud...