14 DAY TRIAL // New evidence shows that transnational tobacco companies (TTC) use very aggressive campaigns in South Korea (SK), in order to appeal to young girls and women, in much the same way as they did in Europe and the United States in the 1920. Basically, the campaigns associate smoking with the liberation of women, and the ridding of tyranny. The find was only recently published in the latest edition of the open-access journal Globalization and Health.
"Since the opening of the South Korean tobacco market in the late 1980s, females have been targeted by TTC as an important source of future market growth and profitability. The rise in smoking rates among females within certain age groups since the late 1980s suggests that these efforts have been successful," says London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine investigator Kelley Lee, the leader of a research team that analyzed documents from various companies present on the SK market.
"Product design associating smoking with body image and female emancipation, familiarly deployed elsewhere, has been extensively used in South Korea to appeal to female smokers. So-called 'ultra light', 'low tar' and 'superslim' cigarettes have been particularly effective, falsely suggesting certain brands offer a healthier or safer option, as well as appealing to female concerns about weight gain. Tighter restrictions on the use of such descriptors, alongside public education on the fallacy of such claims, are badly needed in South Korea," Lee adds.
Because South Korean laws expressly forbid the direct advertisement of cigarettes to women and children, companies managed to find a loophole that allows them to do so nonetheless. They use images of couples for their ads, seeing how this aspect of the commercials is not covered by the legislation. However, it's a widely-known fact in the advertising industry that this type of commercials has great appeal to women.
"The implementation of comprehensive tobacco control measures in South Korea, as set out under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, is urgently needed to protect and promote the health of Korean women and girls," Lee concludes.