And you say engineers are truthful?
So you're checking for blogs (I was trying to find a blog, but I couldn't), and you need to decide whether to read a particular blog or now.
Some blogs, such as Ontario Empoblog, don't have compelling names. But, for a certain audience (including myself), a blog with the name All Marketers Are Liars sounds intriguing.
The blog is actually used to promote a book by the same name, but it still has some interesting posts. Such as this one on organic cigarettes.
Not just organic, but "all natural" and not tested on animals and certified "cruelty free" by PETA. Did I mention that there's a native American on the box?
This is brilliant niche storytelling. There's a percentage of smokers who are able to get by the internal inconsistency...of the term "organic cigarettes" and love the story....
When you perform a Google search for american spirit organic cigarettes, the first sites that come up are all discount cigarette stores. Sounds like someone's being exploited by The Man.
In February 2001, Smokeshop Magazine ran an article on American Spirit. Dale Scott, the author of the article, sounds like a marketer himself:
Anyone who spends time in northern New Mexico soon comes to love the remote serenity of this rugged country. Its mysterious, evergreen-forested mountains offer solitude from mainstream America's breakneck pace. The equally mysterious and ancient Native American presence, combined with that of the pacific Hispanics, lends a stabilizing balance to the Anglo influence. The prolific art, centered on Nature and these other cultures, soothes and enhances the sense of being surrounded by the aesthetic. Outdoor activities are the focus of leisure interests. It is not surprising that this true "Land of Enchantment" draws free and independent thinkers, who don't buy into the post-Industrial Age ethos of modern America.
It was here that several forward-thinking local residents formed Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company in 1982. Their mission: to answer the increasing world demand for all-natural tobacco products, totally devoid of chemical additives....In an era of hardship for many in the tobacco industry - due to market and competitive pressures, an increasingly militant prohibitionist mentality, taxes, gargantuan liability suits, and regulatory burdens - Santa Fe flourishes.
According to Henry Sicignano, vice president of marketing, "Our company's greatest challenge - also our greatest opportunity - is to expose smokers to our chemical-free, all-natural tobacco products, and to educate them to Natural American Spirit's superiority over mainstream cigarettes."
With a market share of less than 1 percent of the total U.S. cigarette business, Santa Fe is undaunted by the behemoths that are their competition....
The shift in America's awareness accelerated Santa Fe's growth dramatically. With the chemical laden aspects of mainstream cigarettes becoming nightly TV fare, smokers' search for all-natural alternatives became serious....
"The Natural American Spirit product line fits every smoking preference: filter cigarettes in regular, medium, light, ultralight, menthol, menthol light, and the new perique blend," says Sicignano. "We also offer non-filter Natural American Spirit Cigarettes." Most are available packaged in either soft or hard packs....
So, when Ludo Cremers' hip hoppers need to leave Compton and/or Chino, they can go to New Mexico and go natural. Although, frankly, it sounds like the same market that Phillies Blunts is pursuing.
Well, without knowing it, this blog has become (as Ludo would put it) the Tobacco Authority. Although I don't think that smoke hits (heh) will outdistance Krystal Fernandez hits on this blog any time soon.
As a public service, I'll start making posts about the ravages of lung cancer. You're welcome.
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From the Rhode Island Cancer Council:
Approximately one-third of Rhode Islanders remain addicted to tobacco. There has been a modest drop in adult smokers, but there has been an increase in the number of high school graduates who smoke. You have to come from the other side of the moon not to have heard about all the serious afflictions resulting from continued tobacco use. It is impossible not to have seen some very graphic (and unpleasant) television messages concerning the health hazards from smoking. Information has also been presented about the hazards of secondhand smoke on children in households where smoking occurs. There has been an increase in the number and severity of asthmatics in smoking households; there is an increase in the number of ear infections in children whose parents smoke around them; and there is also some data that sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) more frequently occurs in households of smokers. Smokers have heard about their increased risks of strokes, heart disease, and, surely, fatal lung cancer and emphysema.
If everyone has already heard these ominous messages and seen the graphic and gruesome presentations on television and still continue to enjoy their addiction without seeking assistance in cessation programs, should one assume that nothing can work to help them? Actually, the experience in Massachusetts and in California have demonstrated that an increase in the price of cigarettes translates into a decrease in the number of smokers. Increased costs of tobacco may have the greatest effect upon young smokers. In both California and Massachusetts, there has been a recent decrease in young smokers while in the rest of the country there continues to be an increase in tobacco use by youth. Secondly, the revenue from the increase in the cost of cigarettes has been used in these states to establish tobacco control programs at the community and school levels....
A smoking addiction means a person has formed an uncontrollable dependence on cigarettes to the point where stopping smoking would cause severe emotional, mental, or physical reactions.
Everyone knows that smoking is harmful and addictive, but few people realize just how risky and addictive it is.
Chances are that about one in three smokers who do not stop will eventually die because of their smoking. Some will die in their 40s, others will die later. On average, they will die 10 to 15 years earlier than they would have died from other causes.
Most smokers want to stop and do indeed try, but only one in three succeeds in stopping permanently before age 60. By this time, much harm may have been done to the body - some of it irreversible.
Those who eventually quit smoking usually try to stop two or three times before they're successful.
Only 2.5 percent of smokers successfully quit each year.
The reason why so many people fail to stop is because they are addicted. Being addicted does not mean that you cannot stop - only that it is likely to be difficult. Anyone can succeed if he or she goes about it in the right way.
How you stop - and, especially, when you stop - is a very personal matter. Only you know what you have to give up, and how the benefits of smoking can be weighed against the benefits of stopping. Harassment and pressure from others who do not understand is often unhelpful. You will only stop when you have made a firm decision. When you do make up your mind, however, you can succeed, regardless of how addicted you may be.
If you stop smoking before or during middle age (age 35 to 50), you will avoid about 90 percent of the lung cancer risk. If you are currently middle-aged, you are also more likely to succeed in quitting now than when you were younger....
There is a famous Washington tableaux in the National Capitol. No, not George Washington crossing the Delaware. It is a repeated public ritual resulting in slight variations of the great classic of our time: seven corporate executives in 1994 standing behind a witness table before a congressional committee in Washington, D.C., arms raised, taking the oath "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God," after which they testified that they did not believe that nicotine in the cigarettes they manufacture is addictive.
Documents later made public showed that they lied and knew it at the time from their own secret documents. No perjury charges followed....
Caution: Watching G- and PG-rated movies may be hazardous to your child's health.
That's the message from aspiring pediatricians at Stanford University, who are warning that movies aimed at children contain far too many scenes of people smoking, which they say inspires kids to take up the deadly habit.
The 19 pediatric medicine students at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital point to a recent UC San Francisco study that found that nearly 80 percent of the 776 movies produced during the last five years included tobacco use. A more alarming finding, the researchers said, was that 80 percent of PG-13 rated films had smoking in them - and so did half the ones rated G or PG.
So the students are gathering empty cigarette cartons and signatures to deliver to movie executives in June. Their message: Drop images of tobacco and smoking from the big screen, unless the movies are rated R....
I love to smoke. In fact I love to smoke so much that I'm gonna get a tracheotomy so I can smoke two cigarettes at the same time. (Rapidly alternates inhaling cigarette through mouth and imaginary hole in neck) I'm gonna get nine tracheotomies all the way around my neck. I'll be Tracheotomy Man. "He can smoke a pack at a time. He's Tracheotomy Man."
(Tosses cigarette onto stage and steps on it. Glances down. Steps on it again. Pauses. Slams foot over and over again onto cigarette butt.)
Gotta make sure it's out. Otherwise you get that toe cancer.
(Lights up new cigarette. Inhales. Exhales loudly, making the sound of a crazed elephant.)
I'm looking forward to cancer. I want that throat cancer. That's the best kind. You know why? Because when you get throat cancer you get a voice box. You know what I'm talking about? (Speaking through a voice box -- a distorted monotone) The thing that makes you talk like this. Sure, it's scary but you can make money with a voice box. Get a voice box and walk around the streets of the city: "Got any spare change?" "Here's my whole wallet. Get away from me! AHHH!"...
[picture here]
I smoke for flavor. Or, I smoke to stand out as looking good. The man pictured above, and the thousands of others like him who smoke after losing their voice boxes are classic examples of why people actually smoke. They smoke because they are addicted to nicotine.
When a man or woman loses his or her larynx (voice box), he or she is no longer able to speak by normal means. A new process of speaking known as esophageal speech must be learned, a process of swallowing air and belching it up that is not mastered by all who have the procedure. There are electronic devices that help assist in the speaking process, but to date the resulting voice is very mechanical and automated sounding. Smokers have a much higher incidence of cancer of the larynx than non-smokers. Heavy alcohol consumption is also a known risk factor, and people who both smoke and drink are at highest risk.
This man and other laryngectomy patients are no longer able to breath through their nose or mouth, they must breath through holes inserted into their throats. This man is still smoking, through a tracheotomy tube straight into his throat. This man is getting no tobacco flavor, he is not going anywhere near a taste bud. He is not smoking because he somehow thinks that he is standing out as looking good or cool. He smokes now for the same reason he smoked before his cancer—he is a drug addict feeding his addiction. Conditions like this show just how addictive nicotine is and how controlled smokers are by this deadly drug....