I don't understand why you think there would have been 0 evidence. The countless respiratory illnesses associated with smoking are readily obvious by taking even a small sample of longterm smokers - a decent chunk of them will sound like smokers, be occasionally hacking up a lung, and so on.
People obviously knew smoking was unhealthy, but chose to do so anyhow. And companies naturally worked to trt to strengthen that cognitive dissonance. Same thing today, but it's slightly more subtle. For instance in a typical Coke ad you'll generally see people that look nothing like regular Coke drinkers - health, fitness, and good body weights abounds.
People obviously knew smoking was unhealthy, but chose to do so anyhow. And companies naturally worked to trt to strengthen that cognitive dissonance. Same thing today, but it's slightly more subtle. For instance in a typical Coke ad you'll generally see people that look nothing like regular Coke drinkers - health, fitness, and good body weights abounds.
Ronaldo's Coke/water moment gave me a vast amount of respect for him - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x2ZLS1V3iMw&pp=ygUbUm9uYWxkbyd... It's how the sort of people Coke gets to pose with their product actually feel about it.