You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …

 

The Product:
Tareyton cigarettes

 

The Promotion:

 

The Pitch:
We are not encouraging you to beat up our competitors … but we sure would be happy if you did!

 

Y’know, when you’re trying to market a highly addictive product, it’s maybe not the best idea to suggest that your customers are so badly hooked, they’ll turn violent and dangerous rather than give it up.

Yeah, yeah, they’re talking here about switching brands of cigarettes, not giving up cigarettes entirely. But two things:

1) This ad came out in 1964, when official warnings about tobacco’s cancerous effects were finally driving a lot of people to quit smoking. The irritable recently-ex-smoker would have been a familiar phenomenon around then, and would inevitably come to most viewers’ minds.

2) When has anyone ever tried to force someone to change cigarette brands? Most they’re likely to do is highly recommend a different brand, encourage you to try it, maybe offer you one for free. If your response to that is to get into a no-holds-barred fistfight … well, marketing your product specifically at violent maniacs is certainly a choice.

Oh, and this isn’t specific to this commercial, but I’d think that, when you’re selling something that coats people’s lungs with tar (to the point you have to specifically advertise how you have top-notch filters that keep that to a minimum), maybe Tareyton isn’t the best name.

Just a thought.