Actor, director and filmmaker, Shekhar Kapur, poses with a cigarette hanging between his lips, his hands busy working on something in the kitchen, while a model, playing his partner, has her mouth agape in awe for an advertisement in 1979, endorsing the Wills Filter cigarettes.
The advertisement carries a tag-line: “Made for each other,” referring not to the ‘couple’, but the tobacco and the filter.
Punctuating the then emerging advertising industry with significant presence, cigarette brands were prominent contributors since the 1960s, when varied advertisements and endorsements were allowed in public, given the absence of regulation.
The trend continued till early 2000s after which laws against endorsement and advertisement of such products began to become stringent and the era of anti-smoking advertisements began.
There is an entire generation in India that grew up without seeing ads for cigarettes in magazines, forget celebrities endorsing cigarettes. And, as the government is busy regulating the rules on advertising of tobacco products even at their sale outlets now, Deccan Herald looks at some of the old, including vintage cigarette advertisements in India, doing rounds online, with a more than considerable following.
The online space, especially blogs have many takers for discussions and sharing of cigarette advertisements, posted not to encourage smoking but as a matter of history of the advertising world.
The Charminars, the Panamas, the Cavanders, the Regents, the Visas, the Four Squares, the Wills, the Gold Flakes, the Red & Whites, et al, are brands whose advertisements from as early as the sixties occupy a special place online, where tens of people are discussing about the various aspects of the advertisements.
Many of these brands are out of the market now, but the comments on these yesteryear ads are marked by irreplaceable nostalgia of old-timers, many of whom may have quit smoking and many more who were forced to change brands.
An older (1970) Gold Flake Filter King advertisement is accompanied with the tagline “worth its length in gold,” as the brand was one of the first to introduce longer, ‘king-size’ cigarettes, while classic advertisements endorsing brands such as Panama and Cavander were spotted regularly.
“Seven world cups, one winner,” an advertisement sponsored by Wills, an ITC brand, read on the back cover of a popular sports magazine in 1999. Wills was the main sponsor of the 1996 Cricket World Cup and had been associated with other sponsorships too.
Today, cigarette companies are barred from sponsoring such events, existing in one of the most regulated marketing environments which prevent them from any public advertising endorsing their brands.
India has graduated to anti-smoking advertisements, mainly issued by government and its various agencies. Several tag-lines like, “Smoking reduces weight, one lung at a time,” have emerged on hoardings, in newspapers and magazines.
One such advertisement by Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA) in 2002 brought India international glory, winning several global awards.
From being allowed to sponsor some of the world’s most prestigious sporting events to having to exist in one of the most regulated marketing environments, cigarette companies have seen worlds on both sides.
While the people discussing these advertisements online are agreeable to the fact that the government’s move is in the right direction, the advertisements of yesteryears are something they want to preserve.
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