14 DAY TRIAL // Marketing cigarette packs sporting warnings and gruesome pictures that are supposed to scare people into giving up smoking has done little to convince smokers that they need to kick this habit.
But then again, written warnings and shocking images can easily be ignored by looking the other way.
A team of Scottish scientists hope to put a dent in the tobacco industry's profits by rolling out talking cigarette packs.
When opened, the packs developed by these researchers play a message that warns the smoker about the health risks associated with the cigarette they are about to light up.
The message is played by a small-scale playback unit that the pack is fitted with, Scotsman reports.
To help people get a better idea of how this technology works, the Scottish scientists asked that they think about singing or talking greeting cards.
By the looks of it, the working principles are roughly the same.
The same source informs us that, until now, specialists have only developed a few prototypes of talking cigarette packs.
Some of them play the number for the hotline offering advice on quitting smoking when opened, and others play a warning saying that cigarettes have a negative impact on fertility.
The packs were tested on women whose ages ranged from 16 – 24, and proved fairly successful in making them think twice before lighting up.
The scientists explain that, all things considered, the packs talking about how smoking reduces fertility were the ones more likely to trigger behavioral changes in the female smokers that took part in this research.
“With the talking packs, people thought they were annoying, but that is a really good way to capture attention. It created a lot of interest,” specialist Crawford Moodie wishes to point out.
The Scottish researchers are presently working on developing other prototypes of talking cigarette packs. The messages played by these packs will target men and older age groups.