
How cigarette makers applied their marketing wizardry to sweetened beverages - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/health/big-tobacco-kool-aid-sugar-obesity.html
======
nickjj
Sugar really is something else.

I used to drink one of those 99c tall cans of Arizona iced tea pretty much
every day.

For context, I quit smoking cold turkey (1 pack a day) with no vaping in
between or any type of patches or help. I just said "I'm done" and that was
it. Truthfully, I found quitting smoking pretty easy because deep down I
wanted to quit. That was 8ish years ago and I never touched one since or even
had the urge to smoke again. The smell alone is revolting to me.

About 9 months ago I quit drinking those stupid cans of iced tea, but then
after about 2 months I thought to myself "well, if I reward myself once a week
with one that might not be too bad". So that worked for about 2 weeks, and
then once a week became twice a week, and before you know it I was back in a
rut of my brain saying "psssst, go drink a can" every day and it became a
distraction.

Will power and determination are some of biggest strengths but sugar cut right
through it. Since then I quit again and I'm sure I'll never drink another one
again but I wanted to share this for anyone who might be in the same boat as I
was. Those drinks will drain you of energy and get you addicted but if you can
power through it, it doesn't take long to break out of it. Couple days should
do it. I can't even put in words at how much better I feel mentally.

~~~
youeseh
So, it delivers a certain satisfaction when you drink it. Maybe there are
other less sugary drinks that give you similar satisfaction - have you tried
replacing the ice tea with say, cans of plain club soda? That's how I got off
my sweetened drink addiction. In my case, I enjoyed the kick from the fizz
more than the taste itself, so I was pretty happy drinking unsweetened fizzy
water.

In your case, maybe the answer is brewing your own iced tea with a milder
sweetener maybe steep a tangerine in the jug like they do with sangria?

~~~
nickjj
I tried a few things. Club soda, a bunch of mildly flavored waters and a few
brands of unsweetened tea (but not all of them). It's just not the same. I
prefer water over all of those if it came down to it, but water is pretty
boring you know.

I haven't tried squeezing my own fruit into tea. Maybe I'll give that a shot.

You are right though, it's no different than how smoking was. It does cause
some amount of desire before you do it, and then satisfaction afterwards.
Textbook addiction loop.

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droithomme
Very interesting article. However, as the article points out, in late
September 1985 Phillip Morris buys General Foods owner of Kool-Aid and starts
marketing it to children using cartoon characters and bright colors?

Contradicts the 50s, 60s and 70s before that when General Foods marketed Kool-
Aid to children using the same cartoon characters and bright colors, some of
which are actually shown and dated in the article.

They do mention a shift in the language used buy this after 1985, from 'for
your family' directed at moms (with brightly colored cartoon characters
though) to direct appeals to teens. But the 1940s ad example shows a boy
perhaps 8 years old buying Kool-Aid for his girlfriend and notes that this is
possible because it is so inexpensive even children can afford it. This 1940s
ad thus is directed at child initiated purchases. Furthermore, the shift from
mom-to-child definitely started before the acquisition as General Foods
produced numerous commercials targeted at children which ran in frequent
rotation during Saturday morning cartoons.

The case with RJ Reynolds and Hawaiian Punch seems significantly more
compelling. Before they buy the company it is said to be a drink mix for
cocktails marketed to adults. Reynolds then upon acquisition redesigns the
drink and markets it to children, and uses the same flavor R&D to develop new
additives to be added both to new exotic cigarette flavors and to Hawaiian
Punch whose advertising targets children.

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colechristensen
Vilifying "big" whatever is an addictive activity by itself. Humans are
predisposed to believing in and fighting against a conspiring enemy in the
same was a children are predisposed to want sugar and to find cartoon
characters selling things appealing.

People have weaknesses and people try to exploit weaknesses. Philosophically
you have to decide how your society manages these two things pitting personal
responsibility against business regulation. Pieces like this do not do enough
to keep that balance, instead blaming problems on big bad X.

~~~
intopieces
Exploiting people’s well know psychological weaknesses and then calling it a
failure of personal responsibility is exactly how ad execs managed to sleep at
night after getting kids hooked on a substance that shattered millions of
lives and cost the US alone hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare
costs and lost productivity.

~~~
colechristensen
This is why I was talking about it being a balance.

How do you pick that balance? When do you say something is exploitation and
when do you say something is personal responsibility or choice?

One logical extreme is only being able to eat government approved meals.
Obviously that is ridiculous but you have to know the extremes to pick a
reasonable moderate choice.

My position involves maximizing personal choice as long as the truth is
accurately represented.

~~~
intopieces
> When do you say something is exploitation and when do you say something is
> personal responsibility or choice?

This is not difficult. When one group is disproportionately impacted by a net-
negative outcome due to a product’s overuse, it’s obvious there is
exploitation.

We can measure health outcomes. We can model when children’s brains have
developed sufficiently to make choices. We can look at the documents the
companies themselves drew up and understand very clearly their intentions to
exploit people and leave them to die.

Accurately representing the truth is not enough. Humans are a mess of impulses
and biases, not logical thinkers who act out of reason at every step.

~~~
colechristensen
At what proportion is an impact "disproportionate"?

~~~
whatshisface
You don't have to tease out the exact line that separates self-defense from
murder to call Hannibal Lecter a murderer.

~~~
colechristensen
If it is obvious it does not need discussion, what about where it isn't
obvious?

You can't legislate what's obvious and ignore the middle.

~~~
whatshisface
> _You can 't legislate what's obvious and ignore the middle._

That is done successfully all the time. It's nice to have the legal boundary
match the line exactly all the time, but if the line isn't known then there's
no harm in placing the legal boundary on the conservative side as an interim
solution while you work the details out.

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jedberg
Not a huge surprise. The worse a product is for you, the better the marketing
has to be. It's not surprising that the skill sets transferred so nicely.
Selling a product that has very little value to the user other than pleasure
should be fairly applicable across product types.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"The worse a product is for you, the better the marketing has to be."

Sugar and nicotine hardly need ads at all! But yes, the combination of natural
addictivity + marketing can be rugged.

What's missing from the equation is caffeine + taurine combinations, i.e.
energy drinks. The ill effects are subversive because it's not at all obvious
but I think elevated, consistent consumption can wear on one's endocrine
system. I'll admit this is not entirely scientifically backed but it's also a
hard thing to suss out of data, and hard to prove, and of course in limited
quantities there's no problem.

~~~
mises
> The ill effects are subversive because it's not at all obvious... elevated,
> consistent consumption can wear on one's endocrine system.

Not too hard to subversive for some people; you're absolutely right about the
wear:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24986632](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24986632)

I imagine some people are more sensitive, but it's still a concern. Of course,
coffee is still supposed to be really good for you (especially black).
Caffeine is also not very addictive, especially compared to tobacco or to
sugar. The problem is sugar is in everything (or almost), meaning it's really
hard to get away from. It's hard to give a concentrated form of something up
when you are constantly exposed to dilute quantities.

I would challenge anyone who reads this to stop eating foods with lots of
added sugar for a while. If you resume, you will be amazed at how ludicrously
sweet things taste. Just something to think on.

~~~
reidjs
Did you just say caffeine is not very addictive?? In what world is that true.
I craaaave coffee all the time and I only drink it black haha.

~~~
Dylan16807
If you stop taking caffeine, the physical cravings should go away after about
a week. You'll wake up without it about as well as you were habitually waking
up with it.

~~~
zepolen
That's not a good indicator of ease of quitting.

The physical cravings of nicotine leave after 3 days.

~~~
Dylan16807
3 days is how long it takes the nicotine to leave your system. Cravings can
last 1-2 or 1-3 months depending on who you ask.

------
acqq
As Joe Camel was mentioned and depicted, something from "Stanford Research
into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising":

[http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/images.php?token2=f...](http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/images.php?token2=fm_st129.php&token1=fm_img3764.php&theme_file=fm_mt011.php&theme_name=PsychologicalExploits&subtheme_name=SexSells)

"Tobacco companies know as much as anybody that sex sells, and they have no
qualms with making use of phallic symbols or with objectifying women to sell
their products."

"Perhaps the most recognizable recent campaign to use such techniques is the
Joe Camel campaign, which lasted up until 1999; Joe Camel s face is drawn to
resemble a scrotum."

~~~
gowld
is that supposed to appeal to women or to men? Girls? Boys? Gay men? Gay boys?

------
yeahitslikethat
Here's my secret: Don't buy ANYTHING advertised to you.

~~~
the_pwner224
Advertising has real value in making markets efficient. If Bob's Bait Shop has
a 50% off sale, or if a new shop opens in a town, a lot of people would really
want to know, and advertising fills this gap. The businesses get more profit,
and the customers are able to make more informed decisions.

Here's a practical example of an inefficiency that advertising could have
solved: I was taught Java in 7th grade, and used Eclipse as the IDE from then
to 12th grade. In 12th grade, a friend used IntelliJ and I asked him about it
and tried it out. Turns out it was much better than Eclipse, and I stuck with
it. Jeff Atwood's blog
[https://blog.codinghorror.com](https://blog.codinghorror.com) has a little
unobtrusive and non-evil ad in the corner. In the past it advertised for Rider
(the JetBrains .NET IDE), but he seems to have added other products since
then. If there was an IntelliJ ad there, I would have looked into it and it
would have been a win-win situation: JetBrains gets a customer and eventually
$$$, I get a better IDE.

One idea I had is to limit advertising to (for example) 3 ads a day per
person. Obviously this would have to be enforced by the government/etc. by
removing all non-sanctioned ad delivery channels as well as all public ads,
but it would allow relevant and useful ads to be useful while reducing the
garbage of companies putting their name everywhere in a mind-control attempt.

~~~
Doxin
_Good_ marketing has value. If I walk into a store I don't mind a
knowledgeable sales clerk selling me something I was looking to buy anyways. I
_do_ mind the pushy tactics and bald-faced lies they serve you in practice
though.

~~~
yeahitslikethat
Have you heard of SPIFFs? If you had you'd mind it.

------
forgotmypw
OT: Does anyone know why NYT makes the images not visible to noJS users? The
page is otherwise laid out OK, and the image placeholders seem to be a
reasonable size, but blank... What is the idea behind this architecture?
Optimization of some kind? Bot lockout? Just ignorance/incompetence?

~~~
frosted-flakes
Disabling JavaScript also doesn't allow the paywall to kick in, so there is no
point in optimising for no JS browsing.

~~~
NullPrefix
Only because the paywall is written in JS.

------
WalterBright
I liked the Hawaiian Punch ads in the 60s, they were funny. But I didn't like
HP, and don't recall ever buying it. Coca-Cola was my vice.

Never liked Kool-Aid that much, either, except when my mom would freeze it in
icecube trays for homemade popsicles.

------
mirimir
"Punchy" is such a riff on drunkenness. And Hawaiian Punch was initially
marketed as a cocktail mix. I don't see many ads, but going out for movies is
a huge exception. And it's amazing how soft drinks are marketed like
psychedelic drugs.

I wonder what it'll be like if/when marijuana is legal. And how tightly
marketing will be regulated.

~~~
AntiRush
Hawaiian Punch was an ice cream syrup originally, not a cocktail mix.

[https://www.drpeppersnapplegroup.com/brands/hawaiian-
punch](https://www.drpeppersnapplegroup.com/brands/hawaiian-punch)

~~~
mirimir
Interesting. Had no clue.

But actually, flavor syrups have traditionally been used as both toppings (for
ice cream, yogurt, etc) and concentrate for drinks. Tamarindo, for example.
It's great on vanilla ice cream, and also diluted with carbonated water. Or
even the old standard, chocolate syrup.

------
stunt
Cigarette makers are making an awful amount of money and nobody is even
talking about them. They have a huge influence on media, so many indirect
advertising everywhere.

Overhead on health care and even the environment that is all on taxpayers
(smokers and non-smokers)

~~~
eadmund
> Cigarette makers are making an awful amount of money and nobody is even
> talking about them.

I don't think that's true. The maker of my favourite cigarette (I haven't
smoked a cigarette in years, but I have nothing against smoking a cigarette
every once in awhile) doesn't even distribute in this country anymore, due to
massive lawsuit expenses.

> They have a huge influence on media, so many indirect advertising
> everywhere.

I believe that a single cigarette will get a movie an R rating (and that
movies nowadays prefer larger audiences to more sophisticated ones, and hence
avoid R ratings), and that cigarettes are completely forbidden on prime-time
TV. Perhaps I'm wrong?

> Overhead on health care and even the environment that is all on taxpayers
> (smokers and non-smokers)

Last I heard the health costs were dwarfed by the Social Security savings due
to regular smokers dying younger.

You don't hear as much about cigarettes now as twenty years ago because the
anti-tobacco forces _won_. Smokers are nigh-universally looked down upon. The
only people who will smoke publicly are the poor. It's just not worth the
social cost to smoke tobacco any more.

There was an article recently about how science can regain its reputation. I
think that the issue of smoking is a prime example of how things should have
gone differently: the role of science & scientists was simply to point out
that smoking causes cancer (and other diseases) & reduces quality of life.
That's it: no recommendations to quit smoking, and _certainly_ no
recommendations for laws against it. Science is capable of making predictions
based on data; it's _not_ capable of deciding what should be done based on
those predictions (that's a matter for ethics or philosophy or religion or
morality or whatever).

In the case of smoking, the debate should have been: given that smoking is bad
for people, is it reasonable to use State violence to prevent them from
smoking? I argue that the answer is clearly no, but certainly others would
argue otherwise. The key thing here is that science has no input into _that_
argument.

~~~
deftnerd
Good question about ratings and cigarette smoking. Some quick googling pulled
up this well-researched article [1] last updated a year ago that does indicate
that the MPAA is more inclined to give an R rating to movies that show
smoking, although they do consider some of the context. If it's a historical
piece that had real-world smokers, they're more inclined to not let the
smoking factor into the ratings because then it gets in the way of the intent
of the writer/director to make the movie realistic.

They are more inclined to allow smoking if it's used to make smoking look bad
(the smoker is slovenly, coughs a lot, etc) or if the smoker has smoking-
related consequences (lung cancer, being made fun of, etc).

Television is a bit more nuanced. The TV ratings (TV-MA, TV-PG, etc) are self-
assigned by the network showing the show according to their own guidelines, or
a collection of amorphous industry "best practices".

There is also a difference between Broadcast Network television and cable
television. Cable television doesn't seem to feel a restriction on showing
smoking characters, but a show on Network television that wants to have a
character smoke has to work really hard to get approval. Here is an example
from the NBC series "The Mick" [2] where they state:

"When the Chernin brothers first mentioned to the writing staff that they
wanted to do an episode about Mickey (Kaitlin Olson) and Sabrina (Sofia
Black-D’Elia) smoking, we knew it would be a challenge. On cable, the
characters can smoke themselves into oblivion, but on network television —
let’s just say Mom and Dad don’t approve.

So, how did we get the network to agree to a smoking episode? And why?

Simply put, we were all excited about telling a story where Mickey and
Sabrina’s bad habit and selfishness would affect the family, specifically Ben
(Jack Stanton). We just had to convince the network that this wasn’t an
episode glorifying smoking; it was an episode condemning it. Thankfully, Fox
is like the cool parent of the network world and believed in our take enough
to let us push the boundaries and show the characters actually smoking."

So, it seems that television is more under the pressure of either wanting to
"do the right thing" or not upsetting anti-smoking advocates that could
perhaps start a campaign to get a show canceled.

[1] [https://www.thoughtco.com/mpaa-ratings-and-tobacco-use-in-
mo...](https://www.thoughtco.com/mpaa-ratings-and-tobacco-use-in-
movies-4071918)

[2] [https://ew.com/tv/2017/01/17/the-mick-recap-
season-1-episode...](https://ew.com/tv/2017/01/17/the-mick-recap-
season-1-episode-6/)

------
arketyp
Tobacco never appealed to me, but seeing only the Marlboro geometry on the
cigarette banned Formula 1 cars makes me want to pick up smoking. I'm at awe
at their branding power.

------
tosser0001
I know this is probably crazy, but would it be legal to add nicotine to a,
say, a soft drink? How much would need to be added before it became addicting?

~~~
Phillipharryt
Nicotine is a powerful stimulant only when absorbed directly into the
bloodstream. The smallest and most convenient barrier into the bloodstream is
the membranes in your lungs, hence smoking being and effective delivery
method. Dip or nicotine gum methods use the gums to get into the blood stream
and do not recommend swallowing any of the juices they produce (why dip users
spit so much). Nicotine in the stomach is either destroyed by the acid or
irritates the lining n making you feel ill. So drinking it, unless you advised
the consumer to hold the drink in their mouth, it wouldn't be very effective.

------
RickJWagner
I've got to say, Joe Camel was a cool figure. (Not to praise his employers, of
course.)

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maxxxxx
I think stuff like selling sugary stuff to children or hooking people on
cigarettes for profit will be viewed as a big crime in the future the same we
way we view racism or slavery now.

~~~
scottie_m
I think it more or less already is, just as people have been condemning
slavery for thousands of years. The problem is now as it always has been, that
profitable things linked to power structures are hard to stop without
widespread violence.

~~~
maxxxxx
Let's hope that mass surveillance of people for the purpose of selling ads
will at some point also be viewed as something we just don't do. It will
probably get much worse first though before it will get better.

~~~
scottie_m
As much as I hate privacy predators, I think there’s a difference between
making life worse, and actively selling people things to shorten it and reduce
the quality of health with addictive substances.

