Targeting of cigarette advertising in US magazines, 1959-86

Abstract

Correspondence to : Dr Warner. Abstract Objective To examine whether and to what extent targeting of cigarette ad vertising has occurred in magazines in the United States from 1959 to 1986. Design Analysis of data on advertising revenues and readership demographics for 92 magazines categorized by type of magazine (women's, sports, news, high brow) and by the occupational class of the readership (crafts and trade and professional). Main outcome measures Relative share of cigarette advertising revenue for each category (the category's percentage of cigarette advertising revenues in the sample of 92 magazines divided by its percentage of total advertising revenues). Results Over the 28 years studied the relative share of cigarette advertising increased significantly in women's maga zines (0-14 to 1 11), sports magazines (1 23 to 1*76), and magazines with predomi nantly blue collar readerships (104 to 1-78). The relative share of high brow maga zines (those focusing on political and intellectual commentary and scientific matters) fell (1 36 to 0 63). By 1986 blue collar and sports magazines had shares of cigarette advertising revenue that were three quarters larger than their share of advertising revenue in general. Over the entire period relative shares of cigarette advertising revenue grew more rapidly for women's magazines than for any of the other categories studied, in part reflecting the fact that women's maga zines had the lowest relative share of cigarette advertising at the beginning of the period. Conclusion In general, our findings are consistent with commonly held beliefs about the nature of targeting in cigarette advertising.