14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers in the United Kingdom recently made an interesting discovery regarding people's smoking habits. They found that cigarettes in plain packages were not as attractive to would-be smokers, and that this could set the basis for a new approach on preventing more people from starting smoking.
However, the research also demonstrated that packaging cigarettes plainly has absolutely no effect on people who already smoke. The lack of a glitzy package doesn't bother them at all.
In the new investigation, scientists from the University of Bristol and the University of Bath used eye-tracking technologies to analyze the way people looked at branded and unbranded cigarette packs.
Test participants were divided into three groups – non-smokers, light smokers and daily smokers, according to the intensity of their habit. They were then asked to watch a display showing both types of cigarette packs, while sensors analyzed the movement of their eyes.
Experts with the UK Center for Tobacco Studies (UKCTCS), which is based at the two universities, say that the non-branded packs simply displayed the health warning, without any additional images.
The study revealed that the eyes of non-smokers and light smokers were very much drawn to the health warnings on the unbranded packs. This seems to suggest that the lack of flashy images on cigarette packs makes people more likely to pay attention to the health warnings inscribed on them.
For daily smokers, the presence or absence of any additional images on cigarette packs had no discernible effect. They looked at unbranded packs in the same way they looked at branded ones.
“In this study we assessed the impact of plain packaging on visual attention towards health warning information and brand information on branded and plain cigarette packs, using eye tracking technology,” explains UB professor Marcus Munafò.
“This technology provides a direct measure of eye gaze location and therefore the focus of visual attention,” he adds. Details of the new work will appear in the April 11 issue of the esteemed medical journal Addiction.
“It is plausible that the more someone looks at the health warnings, for example, the more likely those health warnings are going to be read and understood, with a subsequent impact on behavior,” the investigator goes on to say.
“The UK government has committed to consulting on introducing plain packaging in the future and this study makes a useful contribution to existing evidence,” explains coauthor Linda Bauld.
“Plain packaging will make health warnings appear more prominent and strengthen their impact. This will reduce the role of the pack as a tobacco promotion tool and prevent the use of labels or elements of the pack potentially being used to deceive smokers about the dangers of cigarette smoking,” she adds.