Using Cultural Appropriation to Sell More Cigarettes

During el Día de Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead), the streets of Mexico are full of cultural symbols: ofrendas (altars) adorned with family photographs and keepsakes, people donning calavera (skeleton)-themed face paint, and bunches of marigolds. But the objects displayed also include a more sinister item: cigarette packs.

Even as regulations and bans seek to curb tobacco use, the themed packs' presence demonstrates how far the tobacco industry will go to keep its consumers hooked, even tapping into people’s cultural identity and pride.

Graziele Grilo, a program officer for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Institute of Global Tobacco Control (IGTC), recently spoke with GHN about how this cultural appropriation contributes to the normalization of tobacco use, how policymakers are responding, and how her work is helping inform these responses. 

How do tobacco companies use cultural appropriation on tobacco packaging to sell their products? What's the appeal? 

As other marketing restrictions, such as banning TV and radio advertising have taken effect, the tobacco pack has become a very important marketing tool for the industry. The pack has been shown to be a way that the consumer can express brand identity and recognition. Several tactics have been employed to make the pack more appealing, and one of them is using cultural symbols. It allows the industry to connect with their consumers by appealing to their national/cultural identity or patriotism, for example.

The industry conducts their own marketing research to inform the design of their products. There is extensive work that has been done throughout the years to craft packs that are appealing to specific consumer bases. For example, several countries have a lipstick pack meant to appeal to women.

How does cultural appropriation on packaging contribute to normalizing tobacco use? 

IGTC runs a project called the Tobacco Pack Surveillance System (TPackSS), which systematically collects cigarette packs across 14 low- and middle-income countries with the greatest number of people who smoke. As part of this work, we have collected cigarette packs in Mexico and China. We have data from 2017 in China, in which we observed that more than 60% of the packs had cultural symbols including Chinese painting styles, traditional animals like pandas, and symbols like lotus flowers. And in China, there is a cultural tradition of gift giving, and cigarettes are part of this tradition—making it a common social thing.

In our latest data collection in Mexico, in 2022, we observed very colorful cigarette packs that used the colors of the Mexican flags, traditional animals, or included “Viva Mexico” in the text. We also saw examples of symbols from the country’s Independence Day celebration, and Day of the Dead, like the cutout tissue flags used to decorate an altar.

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Most of these promotional packs were also collectible metallic boxes, sold as “limited editions.” This meant the boxes were items people could keep to use for other things, like storing money, jewelry, and more cigarettes. 

A few years ago, when we conducted focus groups in Mexico with young people between the ages of 13 and 24 years old, they said that they wanted those collectibles because they found the colors appealing, identified with the imagery, and wanted to keep and use them for other things.

How can legislation put an end to such tactics? Are there any notable policies currently in place that focus on this problem? 

Policy change might take a while, but throughout the years, we have seen some gains. Most countries today already have graphic health warning labels on packs. Mexico recently became one of more than 20 countries to ban the display of tobacco products at the point of sale (POS)—restricting the packaging as a marketing opportunity. Research has shown that not displaying products at the POS is likely to reduce both impulsive purchases and overall smoking prevalence. 

Beyond Mexico, one of the strongest policies to restrict marketing of tobacco products is plain and standardized packaging. This policy has been implemented in more than two dozen countries, Australia being the first. It aims to limit and ban the use of shapes, colors, symbols, and descriptors on the packs. Having this policy in place, along with prominent graphic health warning labels, has been shown to incentivize people to quit smoking, and to prevent people from starting smoking, because they won't see the pack as something attractive or that they want to show to others. Because to the tobacco industry, that's another good part of the pack, right? Whoever is smoking becomes a mobile billboard, showing the pack in different settings and making a statement about what they identify with. 

Are there any countries with particularly weak rules that companies might be seeking out to exploit next? 

Anywhere that plain and standardized packaging is not mandated, consumers are going to be confronted with tobacco packs boasting flavors and catchy names, bright colors and misleading words, and appeals that speak to one’s cultural or social interests. Without plain and standardized packaging restrictions, the tobacco industry runs the show. 

Even here in the U.S., there are still not strong restrictions on tobacco marketing, like signage, which normalizes the use of tobacco products. We still have countries that have not implemented full advertising bans, and when planning for a policy, countries need to be very deliberate and comprehensive, because the industry finds ways of exploiting and finding loopholes to keep promoting their own products. 

How has TPackSS had an impact on tobacco packaging policy measures?

IGTC started this project in 2012. We have an extensive database of over 6,500 cigarette packs. We do a very thorough analysis and assess both compliance with health warning labels on cigarette packs, and their design features and appeals. This helps to provide countries with information and see how they are doing with their own policies. 

Through TPackSS, we have observed how the tobacco industry finds ways to manipulate graphic health warnings, and our data can inform countries that are considering stronger policies. For example, some countries put a tax stamp on top of the health warning label as a way of obstructing it. We have shared this information across countries, including recently in Mexico, where we were able to share the findings with partners at the Ministry of Health, and they considered those findings to inform the next round of health warning labels. 

Can members of the public participate in TPackSS?

All the packs we’ve collected are available to view on the website, so anyone can see what we have. We also have a very cool tool that is called “Share a Pack”, and anyone from any country can upload pictures of their packs and share with the world what they are seeing. In addition, we also make all our protocols available so other countries can use those protocols and make their own data collection.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.  

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