FDA Considers Placing Graphic Images on Cigarette Packaging

Since visual learners make up approximately 65 percent of our population, compelling images often play great roles in leading consumers to make purchases. If the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has its way, striking visuals will become the antithesis of must-have buys, as the agency is hoping to add dissuasive depictions to cigarette packaging and advertising.

FDA issued a proposed rule to require new health warnings on cigarette packages and in advertisements to promote greater public understanding of the negative health consequences of smoking. https://t.co/4QMJYdehl4

— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 15, 2019

Lung cancer claims thousands of lives each year in the U.S., with cigarettes being an obvious culprit. The FDA wants to reduce that staggering total through blunt looks at what harm the tobacco goods could do to smokers' bodies.

Hoping that its unavoidably frank messages come to occupy at least 50 percent of both sides of every cigarette package come March 2020, the FDA is positioning the U.S. to catch up with other locations that have altered how cigarette companies market their products, with yesterday’s release of the images initiating a public comment period that will last until October 15.

Based on the results of that stretch, we could see pictures akin to ones that adorn packages in 28 countries, according to the World Health Organization, that require them.

Promo Marketing has devoted space to the controversy surrounding not only the visual marketing of cigarettes but also cannabis and affiliated items. Through those pieces, it became apparent that although nobody can suppress an individual’s freedom to indulge in nicotine or cannabis, there is not an anything-goes mindset among health influencers when it comes to how consumers will look at the products.

From the perspective of the FDA, the new compilation of images will serve as its way of reminding people that kicking their habit is far more beneficial than continuing it, and that never even starting smoking is truly commendable, especially among the youngest and, therefore, most impressionable end-users.

The FDA has proposed a new rule that would require cigarette packages to carry very large warning labels featuring color photos that graphically illustrate the damage smoking can cause. https://t.co/HenIEUMydK pic.twitter.com/BM09UNOpne

— WebMD (@WebMD) August 15, 2019

Regarding the FDA shots, it raises the question whether the images are too extreme, not provocative enough or completely capable of encouraging dips in cigarette use? Are these marketing materials that seek to serve as counters to other forms of advertising invasive or indicative of trying to protect the common good?