When Sir Walter Raleigh first brought tobacco to the UK on returning from one of his sea voyages, no doubt he was envisioning a tobacco business and that would explain why he maintained that tobacco smoking came with health benefits, something we know to be untrue. This deceptive side of what developed into the tobacco industry can be seen in some of the mantras applied by that industry in its advertising campaigns. Those of us who are of a certain age may remember “Let Capstan take the strain”. An advert which must have been designed to subtly convince the public that Capstan smoke might help them with stress, which would be at best, a doubtful proposition.
From the same era, we come across the claim that “Senior Service satisfies”. We can reasonably assume that ultimately it did not fully satisfy and once more the ad plays to the masculine archetype of the rugged outdoor usually bearded sailor going about his virile looking nautical activities.
Then there was “Come to Marlborough County where the flavour is’. Once more, the advert plays to the masculine archetype of the ever popular rugged outdoor cowboy. Smoking and lassoing from horseback etc as he sports his casual cowboy clothes and his western rig horse saddle. The Marlborough cowboy, namely Mr. Philip Morris of course founded his successful advertising agency on this sort of image.
Sadly, Philip Morris later developed cancer and spent much of the latter part of his life visiting schools where he regularly spoke to the children on the dangers of smoking cigarettes.
This could remind us of the words of Mick Jagger in the Rolling Stones song ‘Satisfaction’ when he tells us that “Some man comes on the radio and he’s telling me more and more about some useless information meant to fire my imagination. But he can’t be a man because he doesn’t smoke the same cigarettes as me”.
Hopefully this blog is a useful reminder not to trust the words of people promoting cigarettes or vaping which one of our recent blogs deals with and asks the question is vaping part of the solution or is it more part of the problem?
Here at our hypnotherapy clinic, we regularly deal with both smoking and vaping addiction. If we can help you, please get in touch today!