Smoking - Plain Packaging

I've been hearing for a while now about how the packaging of cigs is going to be changed to having no branding on them. I'm not sure really if I think this is a good thing or just another pathetic attempt to try and make it look like the government are trying to make it look like they are trying to get people to stop smoking. Even if they do change the packaging at the end of the day it most likely wont stop people buying them because to even expose them to the health warnings on the packs you have to have actually bought them in the first place.  I looked more into it anyway to see what I could find.

Plain Packaging for Children (link)

"Make packs less attractive to our children
Every year, another 340,000 children in the UK are tempted to try smoking. And research has shown that they are more likely to be attracted by designed tobacco packs, than by plain packs.

With regulation in place to restrict television, radio and other advertising, packaging is becoming more and more important to the tobacco industry to help sell their products.

Shiny holograms, pretty pastel colours and wrappers are just some of the eye-catching pack designs available, and there is building evidence to suggest that these packs can attract and mislead children. 

Increase the effectiveness of health warnings 
If plain packaging were to be introduced, health warnings could be updated and increased from 30% to 75% of the pack front.

Evidence suggests that the impact of health warnings are lost on current branded packs and become less noticeable.

If plain packaging is introduced in the UK, this will change. The health warnings will become bigger and more eye-catching against a plain background. This means that by making packaging plain, health warnings will become more effective."

Reading this website made me laugh a bit. Yeah I get the fact that a shiny piece packaging might attract the eye - I know it does for me, but that's because I like to see nice print finishes and what not. I don't think for 'children' as this website is saying, that it would make them want to smoke because of it. Also, looking at how they propose the packaging should be:

Surely the bigger images is going to draw the attention of children to the packs just as much, if not more than a bit of spot varnish, because they are a lot more drawn to visual imagery? They prefer to look at pictures than they do to read writing. I think there would be a lot better way to approach what they are saying than what they are suggesting.

Plain packaging will help make smoking less cool (link)

"There is no doubt that the ban on smoking in public places has gone a long way to help Scots kick their deadly habit, but much more needs to be done to stop a new generation of children growing up as addicted adult smokers. The next step to help prevent this is to introduce such plain and unattractive cigarette packaging that no teenager would associate the packets with being cool.

A report, which is being released by Cancer Research UK today, refers to documents from the tobacco industry that show that packaging has indeed been developed to appeal to new smokers, through size, colour and design. This is significant when you consider that eight out of ten smokers start before the age of 19.

Plain packaging would strip all branding from cigarette packs, leaving all tobacco packs looking the same. Unbranding cigarette packets won’t stop everyone from smoking but it will give millions of children one less reason to start.

To support our campaign to end the packet racket and sign our petition, visit www.theanswerisplain.org"

I think just within this section of the article on this web page where it says 'the next step' makes it more obvious that it's just another way to try and take control of the situation. Obviously packaging has an influence on the decision of buying cigarettes, but these are talking about children buying them - for a start they can't because they are underage so they wouldn't get the luxury of going into the shop and picking which would look nice. Also, for the ones that do get their hands on some in what ever way, they are more likely than not going to buy the cheapest ones because they will be using their dinner money/pocket money to buy them. It's only after smoking for a few years would someone start to consider which cigs they will buy, for the taste and what not. When you're a kid you most likely wouldn't understand the fact that each brand tastes different.

This webpage leads you on to another one, so I followed that on.


The Answer is Plain (link)

"The Government is considering making cigarette packs less attractive to children by stripping packs of their glitzy style and branding. Watch the video to see why this is an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.

Plain packaging means removing all branding from cigarette packs, so that all packs, from all tobacco brands, will look the same.

Plain packs won’t stop everyone from smoking, but they will give millions of kids one less reason to start."

I watched the video and I don't really agree with the whole process they went through as a whole. To make this more of a stronger argument to put forward, at the end of the day they should have asked the kids straight out if they would want to smoke one of the cigs because of the packaging - which they didn't. They clearly just put the different packs in front of them and asked if they liked the packaging and why. They could do this with anything such as alcohol, or even sweets, and they would have got the same sort of video response to it. 

Google Images

To have a look at the proposed plain packaging that could be introduced, I had a look on Google images to see what came up.

There seems to be two distinct possibilities that this could go, one being the plain white ones with the helvetica writing, and the other being the green packaging with the large images on them. I have read on a couple of websites that I have skimmed over about them using a dark olive green colour because 'the public' selected this colour to be the least appealing, so I think it might be more towards the green packaging examples I have collected. Even so, I think with what they are trying to achieve with this whole thing, I think the white, plainer examples would be more effective.