The tobacco companies are masters of marketing.
They will target groups that they want to introduce to smoking by associating smoking with the things that those people will consider to be cool.
They sponsor major music events because they know that there will be impressionable teens at these events and they will associate that brand of cigarettes with the musician and all the glamour that goes with the musical lifestyle.
They create characters that represent the type of person that other people would like to be. An example of this is the Marlboro Man. Even cartoon characters like Joe Camel are targeting people who associate that brand of cigarettes with all that is cool including money, excitement, fun and success.
Tobacco companies paint a picture with their advertising and offer people the dream of being part of that fantasy simply by smoking their cigarettes.
They are obliged by law to display warnings of the health hazards that are caused by smoking but counter them with massive advertising campaigns to overshadow those hazards with illusions of a better life.
Even sports events are sponsored by tobacco companies and when tobacco advertising is banned from specific sports they find loopholes to allow them to continue getting their message across or move on to other areas where they can still influence the same target market.
There is so much tobacco advertising all around us that sometimes we are unaware of how much we are exposed to it.
Even through the use of the motion picture industry, the tobacco companies get the benefit of promoting their products to massive markets when the action hero or other main movie characters are seen to be smoking.
Often the advertising is very subtle but it is always highly effective. Big money is spent on branding so even when the company names aren’t allowed to be advertised due to regulations the branded colors and graphics that are familiar to many people are still to be seen where required to maintain their presence in the marketplace.