Logos of the Present Day Cigarette Commercial

Interestingly enough, despite the greater emphasis on scientific evidence today as compared to the 1960s, the commercial relies primarily on pathos. Like the 1960s commercial, there is one major argument that I can analyze through logos and the Toulmin System.

"What's a pack of smokes cost? Your teeth."

Claim (Implied): You should not smoke.
Reason: Smoking will cost you your teeth.
Warrant / Underlying Assumption: People like having their teeth.
Backing: Teeth are necessary for a lot of important things, like eating and smiling for photos.

It isn't hard to find scientific backing for the claim.
I found this in two minutes, tops.

I find it funny that both commercials have an argument that has an issue when looking at the grounds of the argument. That being said, while Newport (presumably) didn't have the grounds at all, the FDA certainly does have scientific backing for its claim. So why did the FDA not include the grounds it had in the argument it presented?

One way to look at it is that the FDA assumes that the public knows it has the data to prove its reason, and so the FDA saw no need to actually present the evidence. What I think is more likely returns to the first sentence of this post - "the commercial relies primarily on pathos." Watch the commercial again and try to find a spot to fit in some scientific backing without breaking the flow of the commercial. I think trying to create an argument fully grounded in the Toulmin System would hurt the pathos of the commercial, which is its strongest point. Thus, the FDA omitted the grounds.

The backing is significantly harder to attack. Teeth are important. If they weren't, we wouldn't have dentists.

Logos of the 1960s Newport Commercial

At first glance, there appears to be no appeal to logos in this commercial at all. What is logical about a couple jumping out of a TV to give a man a cigarette?

Not much, honestly. The only argument that I can analyze through logos is the following:

"[Newport is] the freshest taste in menthol cigarettes."

What are the parts of this argument?

Claim (Implied): You should buy Newport cigarettes.
Reason: Newport is the freshest taste in menthol cigarettes.
Warrant / Underlying Assumption: Fresh tasting cigarettes are better.
Backing: Fresh tasting things are typically better than things that do not taste fresh.

Goodness, it looks
like other cigarette
companies did assert
they were fresher!

An issue this argument has is that it has no grounds, or support for its reason. Newport offers no evidence as to why Newport is the freshest taste in menthol cigarettes. It would be easy for a competing cigarette company to offer a rebuttal, or to even assert that they have the freshest taste in menthol cigarettes. From the perspective of logos, it would be helpful to run some kind of survey of cigarette users about which cigarette they feel is freshest.

The backing, or support for the warrant, is much harder to attack. It just makes sense to me by intuition that fresh tasting things taste better. I don't smoke, but if I did I would probably ones that tasted fresh.

Style of 1960s Tobacco Commercial

In the 1960s smoking was common place and encouraged in society. This is in line with the message delivered in the 1960s video. Newport used stylistic elements of language, music, and mood to promote the use of tobacco. In the beginning of the commercial the mood is lazy and bored which is illustrated by the dark lighting and slumped figure of the man in the chair. However, Newport skillfully makes a transition in mood by suddenly playing upbeat music that causes the man to wake up and pay attention to the television. The television changes from a somber television show to a cheery, and inviting commercial. A woman is dancing and a man is waving, all because they had a Newport cigarette. This sudden change in music and mood is used to try and convey a light hearted, happy mood. Newport also uses the switch to try and convince the audience that smoking is fun and will evoke happiness, like it did for the beach goers in the commercial on the television the man is watching. Newport even goes as far as having the beach goers jump out the television to the man and hand him a cigarette. Suddenly. the man is smiling and happy then ever, of course, this only is a result of the cigarette. Newport wants the audience to feel like they too can have fun if they smoke. The beach goers even go as far to light he cigarette for the man, making it seem like Newport is almost doing the public a favor by providing "a smoother tasting cigarette" for the public to use.

No dialogue is in this commercial, but the slogan "a smoother cigarette" is repeated several times throughout the commercial. This is purposefully done, because it identifies with the jargon at the time and how people described their cigarettes. At the time, a smooth cigarette meant a fresh, easy to inhale smoke that was desired by all. This use of jargon appealed to the audience at the time and is used as a means of persuasion. Newport also uses the stigma of the beach (carefree, fun, happiness) to create a light mood and glamorize the use of tobacco.

Newport skillfully uses stylistic elements to convince the audience that smoking is not only okay, but fin and glamorous. If you need to smile, light up.

Style of Modern Tobacco Advertisements

Creepy clowns

Since the aim of this advertisement is to discourage tobacco use, its creators shaped its style to make smoking seem unappealing. From the very first frame, the audience perceives a dark, almost-empty parking lot of a seedy convenience store, reinforced by the clown image, which for many people connotes creepiness or even terror. This is not an inviting location. Once inside the store, the audience notices the eerie glow of the fluorescent lights, as well as the loneliness of the scene--the customer and the cashier seem to be the only two in the store. Viewers note this isolation, as well as the atmosphere reminiscent of hospital lighting (foreshadowing of health problems, anyone?), and associate them with the act of buying cigarettes. Further, the cashier's detached attitude while making the sale conveys the harsh reality of the consequences of tobacco use. Finally, the voiceover at the end of the advertisement uses colloquial English, referring to cigarettes as "smokes," in order to connect casually with the average American consumer. The writers avoid using medical jargon or accusatory language to make their point. Instead of sounding like a lecture, the tone of the narrator's message more closely resembles advice given by a friend. In conclusion, this advertisement combines a negative image of the reality of tobacco use with a warning issued to sound caring. It de-glamorizes smoking by presenting both explicitly (tooth loss) and subliminally (loneliness and sketchiness) the consequences of tobacco use, then suggesting that avoiding such outcomes is in your best interest.

Advice from a friend

Pathos of Present Day Commercial

Pathos is, literally speaking, an appeal to the audience's emotions. The main feeling that the "Real Cost" commercial evokes is a feeling of disgust and shock.

At the beginning of the commercial, we see a slow zoom in on a small convenience store at the dead of night. Those few seconds leave us time to anticipate what sort of shady deal will be occurring there.

A cut to inside the convenience store, and we see a man asking for a pack of cigarettes. The intent of the creator of this ad is to have you associate cigarettes with a sort of shady, not on the up-and-up sort of feeling.

A cut to the man's ID and a small wad of cash. Personally, when I first saw that small wad of cash, I was wondering why the man was paying so much for a pack of cigarettes. Looking more closely, it looks like the wad contains a five and one or two ones, which I suppose is the right price for a pack of cigarettes today.

It was surprising, then, when the cashier said "It's not enough." Perhaps the smoker forgot to factor in the tax? The man reaches in his pocket, for what we assume is his wallet, and he instead grabs a pair of pliers. We have a half a moment to think about what he is going to do with those pliers as he goes for his mouth.

Smile for the camera.

The most powerful moment of pathos in this commercial is when the man, casually as can be, removes one of his teeth and sets it on the table. As someone who can remember removing my kid teeth for money from the tooth fairy and who is going to have my wisdom teeth removed in December, it hurt me a bit to just see that. We are led to believe that because of the lack of emotion in the man that there must be a reason that he is able to remove his tooth without pain. Based on the general direction of the commercial, the audience is supposed to think that smoking allows one to painlessly remove one's teeth.

Indeed, that is the main point that the ad is trying to convey - that smoking can cost you your teeth.

Pathos of the 1960s Cigarette Commercial

The theme of the 1960s was happiness. Whether through the movements, drug use, new hippie mindset etc. the focus was to be happy, no matter what it entailed to achieve this. The pathos is the 1960s commercial is targeting this theme and manipulating this shared societal longing to persuade people to smoke, particularly Newport Cigarettes. In the beginning of the commercial the man was sitting in a chair in a dark room watching television. He looks restless and bored, which was very relatable to people at the time. Many wanted change in any form, so the pathos used by Newport honed in on this by setting up a somber scene and having the actor look restless. All the sudden a commercial for cigarettes comes on and people are dancing on the beach. This causes the man to sit up and become happy. As stated before the theme of the 1960s was searching for happiness, so the commercial manipulating the emotional vulnerability of viewers. They wanted people to feel like if they smoked they would feel the same happiness the man felt in the commercial. The dark room all the sudden turing brighter halfway was a subtle effect that added to happy feel in the latter part of the commercial. At the time women were still seen as sex symbols, which Newport knew, and as a result used the "perfect" woman at the time in the commercial to grab emotional attention as well. Overall. the commercial was one huge appeal to emotions, espesically  happiness. Newport relied heavily on pathos to promote their products.

Ethos of the Modern Day Cigarette Commercials

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the creator of the recent cigarette commercial. They are a government agency that protects the health of society by ensuring all medical devices, food, and drugs are safe for the public. They also inform the public about health information (diseases, tobacco, vaccines etc.). One area the FDA specializes in is tobacco products . The FDA has done extensive research on the health hazards of tobacco products and has made this known to the public through articles, lectures, advertisements, and commercials. The main focus of the FDA is to encourage the public to stop smoking by advertising all the consequences tobacco products bring (yellow teeth and nails, wrinkled skin, gum disease etc.).

This commercial was released to the public February 4, 2014 on popular television networks across

the country. These commercials are made to look as realistic as possible so they are relatable to the general public. This commercial still is on television today and has been seen by millions. The FDA has found the negative consequences tobacco products cause by many research projects, and they want to inform the public how it is harming their health. The main focus of this commercial and the FDA is to inform and to be honest about the consequences of products.

Ethos of 1960s Cigarette Commercials

The creator of our 1960s cigarette advertisement is obviously Newport, manufactured by the Lorillard tobacco company, which markets its product solely for the goal of monetary gain. The most important thing to note about the ethos Newport establishes in this commercial is that its position is completely one-sided. Intrinsically, the commercial presents a beautiful, happy couple on television who serve as an example of the positive outcomes of smoking Newport cigarettes.

To the average Joe lazing on his couch, the woman represents the benefits he can reap, specifically, attention from the opposite sex. The camera shots even seem to zone in on her most often, emphasizing her importance to the commercial's argument that cigarettes will bring consumers all they desire. (It is worth noting that the man watching the commercial-inside-a-commercial has a wife, but that he appreciates the attention from the Newport woman since his own is upstairs, ignoring him. He is bored and she represents a temporary fun fantasy she can help him partake in.)
Extrinsically, we know that Newport is trying to sell its audience a product, therefore its motive leads it to conveniently leave out the negative effects of smoking. Modern-day tobacco advertisements are slightly less biased, by law, anyway, since they address the other side of the argument. All tobacco advertisements since the mid-60s have been banned from television and have required a Surgeon General's warning about the harmful health effects of tobacco use. The 1960s advertisement could have mentioned these risks, refuting them by arguing that it's more important to enjoy oneself in the moment than to worry about the future. Equally, they could have chosen a comedic route, addressing the social risks of tobacco use--perhaps by revealing that smoking alienated the man's wife somewhat, although he might ultimately prove to find that quite a relief.

Kairos of Present Day Cigarette Commercials

Good life advice, really.

Today, it is widely known that tobacco use causes all sorts of negative health effects, such as ruining the body's immune system, causing signs of premature aging, and, as shown in the commercial, causing gum disease and tooth loss. Despite this, 1 of 5 deaths in the US today are attributed to smoking. The timeliness of this commercial is thus in its appeal to younger people, who are at risk for smoking. While the target audience is more directed towards teens and college students, the commercial is also appealing to smokers of all ages to quit or else risk tooth loss. The combination of greater medical knowledge about the effects of smoking and the knowledge that the sooner a smoker quits, the less of an effect the smoking will have on their lives makes this moment timely to deliver the anti-smoking message.

The commercial is also timely in that it shows a situation smokers encounter on a regular basis. When buying cigarettes, smokers have to show their ID to a man behind the counter and give him a wad of cash.

A smoking gun if I ever saw one.

The commercial also portrays the smoker going to a convenience store at the dead of night. This situation is meant to portray smoking as something that is not cool, but rather very shady and abnormal.

This anti-smoking commercial thus uses kairos by pressing the advantage that the anti-smoking campaign has. It is well known today that smoking is unhealthy as compared to the 1960s, and every smoker that quits will be a positive contribution to the campaign.

The Major Rhetorical Argument/Stasis Theory of the Portrayal of Tobacco Use in Commericials

The 1960s is often thought of the age of widespread drug use.  Most think of LSD, heroin, marijuana etc. when talking about drug use, however tobacco was the most used drug at the time. At the time, the hazards of smoking were beginning to be realized, however, most chose to ignore the hazards because it was a familiar habit. The tobacco companies used commercials to persuade the pubic to continue to purchase their products, despite the new found hazards. The perfect example of this persuasion is in an Old Newport Cigarette Commercial .

Newport was one of the biggest tobacco companies at the time, and were responsible for many commercials like this one. In the commercial the company sets up the scene of an unhappy man who immediately lights up after he "lights up".  They want to portray a sense of happiness that cannot be found anywhere but in one of their cigarettes. They are encouraging smoking in this commercial, which is in line with the mindset of the time. This is a contrast to the anti-smoking push of today's society. In the modern commercial, cigarettes are portrayed as instruments of poor health and sadness. In today's society the push is to eliminate smoking all together. One stark contrast is the use of laughter and the beach to evoke happiness n the 60s commercial, but in the modern commercial they use teenagers/young adults with sunken eyes and decaying bodies. The 1960s commercial wants people to forget about the hazards of smoking and have fun, since that is what the focus was on back then. Now, smoking commercials have made a 360, and they now discourage what was once encouraged and thought to make people happy. 

Kairos of 1960s Cigarette Commericals

The decade of the 1960s represented the beginning of a shift toward greater social liberties. As drug use became increasingly popular with counterculture, celebrities, and normal people adopting new drugs, such as LSD, the tobacco industry had to keep up. They selected this moment to retain their moderate to conservative clientele, as well as reel in new potential customers from the maturing liberal youth of the Baby Boom. Our Newport Menthol commercial specifically targets the older generation, likely surly with the wildness of the new generation's habits, and looking to indulge in the good old-fashioned comfort of traditional cigarettes. Additionally, it appeals to the consumerism that the older generation grew up with the previous decade. The 1950s introduced a plethora of consumer goods into nearly all American households for the first time since the minimalism imposed by World War II.

The construction of 1950s suburbs yielded the stereotyped dream of owning
the ideal "American household," in the working and middle-class.

As such, Americans who came of age in the 1950s responded strongly to images of the "typical American household," as presented in the advertisement. Compared to today, 1960s society was far more homogenous, at the very least in its media portrayal, encouraging people to fit in without questioning any potential risks of the status quo.

It may look like a microwave oven, but it's
 actually a typical color TV of the 1960s!

Replete with the most popular new technology at the time, color television (the figures in the commercial literally pop out of the man's television set to bring him the key to their onscreen happiness--a box of Newport cigarettes), the man's house looks just like the inside of suburban homes of all middle-class families of the 1960s. Any American adult at the time could have immediately imagined himself in the man's place, embracing the comforts of a nice cigarette in front of his unassuming, very normal television set.

Major Rhetorical Argument of Modern Tobacco Advertisements

A visual displaying some types of cancer caused by tobacco.

Tobacco use in the present-day United States, while diminishing, is still very present. Tobacco comes in many forms, including cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco. People have turned to smoking or other uses of tobacco for centuries generally out of curiosity, boredom, habit, or desire to appear "cool." However, in recent decades, more emphasis has been placed on the consequences of tobacco use, including its causing diverse forms of cancer, perpetrating nicotine addictions, endowing its user with bad breath and smelly clothes, and impacting the health of those around them. On both an individual and a global health level, tobacco products constitute a large and easily preventable problem. They benefit the tobacco industry but can become a serious drain on people's time, money, and physical wellbeing. The use of tobacco products should be discouraged by educating people to make informed decisions by considering the risks associated with smoking, snuff, and chewing tobacco. Many anti-tobacco advertisements today cater to this goal, compared with advertisements in years past that promoted tobacco use until such commercials were banned from television. Perhaps an even more radical solution could be implemented, outlawing tobacco sales in addition to the already-existing bans on smoking in many public places. Consumers themselves can make individual lifestyle choices about whether to use tobacco products

Poster for a 2005 movie that presented the crafty
ways that the tobacco industry maintains its hold on
Congress and on American consumers.

or not, but until legal action is taken, tobacco industries will continue to subsist on the users they already have hooked. We must all decide whether we want to live in a society that condones costly, unhealthy addictions, or whether it's about time we outlawed this increasingly antiquated practice.