Will it motivate people to stop smoking? Probably a small handful who are already thinking about quitting anyway, and could have been touched in other ways. I think that what all governments don’t realize is that scare tactics only work on a minority, and it’s not a sustainable way encourage new behaviours. The same applies to alcohol. Telling someone they will die of liver disease won’t stop them drinking (as the majority of us have an ‘it will never happen to me mentality’); but looking at the reasons why people drink (or smoke) would be more effective in the long run. When is any government going to understand that it’s the emotional insights that lead to effective ideas?

In my opinion, which is very humble ;-), this is the saddest thing to happen to the world of marketing. Not only it is ethically questionable about where the line is drawn re governmental control, but it shows that the ruling suits have no understanding of brands and how they work. What’s next? No branding on food to stop obese people eating? I’ll stop there.

FYI, I don’t smoke.

Good post!

It’s not that people aren’t smart. It’s that groups of highly-paid marketers and VPs sit around and hatch schemes that are so damned clever that you can’t possibly foresee, prevent, or remove them on your own no matter how smart you are.

That’s why we have lawyers.

And that’s why we have government.

Remember, laws are for the lawless. Laws protect the innocent, smart and dumb alike, from people that connive to oppress others and line their pockets by force.

Part of the allure of smoking is the brilliant packaging, the image of hip or sophisticated or rugged or what have you. If the marketing wasn’t so great, there would be fewer smoking related deaths.

Don’t you realize that, independent of consumers’ collective intelligence, there are people who go to school and study the science of making something and anything appealing to buy on appearance alone?

Those are called commercial graphic designers. Thats like saying people don’t need help of larger authorities to avoid monopolies of people who went to school for business, or malpractice form people who went to school for medicine or harm from people who study martial arts.

Jacob’s site and career, along with many other individuals and firms, is very proof that branding is a powerful amoral tool to be employed in many ways. Not all of those ways can be excused away by saying someone simply has freedom of choice.

(Ok I’m going to interrupt and end my comment with this link:)

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/05/31/indonesia.smoking.baby/index.html

Personally, I don’t care what happens to cigarette companies, they can burn for all I care (pun intended). But when the government starts telling people that they aren’t smart enough to make informed decision, I’m insulted.

To some of the above: I’m a smoker. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of my habit. But I do love to smoke. As difficult as it is to my body, it is—as you can imagine—hard to quit. Ask any smoker: quitting is almost like losing a best friend.

That said—

This is a brand: It is a scarlet letter. But for those of you who think that smoking rightly deserves this treatment, I’d question you to think again. Just smoking?

Why not disheveled, irreverent, disoriented drunken young adults on every bottle of cheap Vodka?

Why not lipo-ed fat in sterile body waste bags on the side of every Hershey’s chocolate bar?

If some people had their way, there’d be AIDS victims’ faces on every condom wrapper!

MANY “common” consumables are deadly. And, in my honest opinion, the lingering “chic” of smoking far outshines the inhumanity of a party full of smash-drunken adults, or the frumpiness of an obese individual. (Remembering that no one mentioned is a bad person, simply for bad choices.)

The Aussie government, as simply a matter of fact, makes a political statement—albeit popular—when they do something like this. Those that say “it’s a long time coming” are misled.

“Enough exposure” = “enough money thrown for advertising”. I totally agree… the most boring logo can become the most recognized brand in the world if you have enough money to promote it.

A surprising fact I learned concerning image/branding is that shoots for fast food products are conducted in the same way they would for live fashion models, down to the make up!

So with the ridding of logos on a clothing brand in a market heavily driven by name (at the expense of design, mind you), a statement that’s essentially the same in the case of the cigarrettes has much less far-reaching implications.

I think i state the obvious when i say logos stripped of all their color,designs and the tiny details that make them great would be quite dull.But as you said Jacob a simple text on a black background can leave a significant mark in peoples mind…But i like i said i dont believe for a second that this will deter smokers !I know quite a few smokers and i know they will buy these smokes regardless! Maybe you should strip down your whole site of styles for an experiment Jacob!? Haha..