The power of packaging: Plain cigarette packaging 'put off' smokers

This article just through from the Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/national/plain-packs-put-off-smokers-20121129-2aitp.html

The power of packaging is shown in this article.

Quotes from the article include:
New laws that take effect from Saturday requiring cigarettes to be sold in drab brown packaging, including health warnings that cover 75 per cent of the pack.

"REPORTS from smokers that cigarettes in plain packs taste worse could be an early indication the new laws will be effective in reducing smoking rates, health experts say."

"Cancer Council chief executive Ian Olver said it was well-established through more than 20 years of research that branded packaging was a powerful marketing tool for recruiting new smokers."

  ''We were always confident that plain packaging would take away a lot of the glamour that seduces young people into a tobacco addiction, because the evidence is so compelling," Professor Olver said.

  ''We've heard that some smokers suspect the flavour of the tobacco in the plain packs tastes worse and has been changed, when it hasn't,'' he said.   ''It's more likely that without the glossy pack and the iconic branding, tobacco is simply tasting more like the lethal poison that it is.''

University of Sydney professor of public health Simon Chapman said he had received ''several emails and phone calls from smokers saying, 'I've been buying my brand in new packaging but it tastes terrible and I've decided to quit'.''

He said the phenomenon had caused ''a lot of animated discussion in my field; this might be quite big''.

''The thinking has always been that the biggest effect will be on future generations, they will not have grown up having ever seen lovely packaging.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/plain-packs-put-off-smokers-20121129-2aitp.html#ixzz2DegOY5Jy