快猫短视频

BEING a smoker these days is not easy, and in Canada the pressure not to
smoke is about to increase. The government proposed last week that half the
surface of each packet of cigarettes should carry stronger warnings with graphic
pictures such as cancerous lungs, premature babies harmed by their mothers鈥�
smoking and even droopy cigarettes to show the possible side effect of male
impotence.

Canada鈥檚 health ministry has a long-standing interest in using tobacco
packaging to deter people from smoking. A study in 1995 suggested that
black-and-white packaging would greatly reduce the allure of tobacco products,
especially among teenagers. But tobacco companies argued successfully that such
a scheme violated their right to free expression and to promote their
brands.

This time, Health Canada has come back with a plan that will be more
difficult for the industry to block. Officials at the ministry have evidence
that the larger, emotive warnings will not only be more effective, but also that
they won鈥檛 affect brand recognition.

The ministry commissioned John Liefeld, an expert in consumer studies at the
University of Guelph, Ontario, to study the importance of the size of a health
message, its content and its effect on brand recognition. Six hundred people
took part in the study. About a third of the group were teenage smokers, another
third were teenagers who didn鈥檛 smoke and the remainder, adult smokers.

The volunteers were asked to choose which of two cigarette packets on a
computer screen would be most likely to put them off smoking. Sometimes one
packet had a larger printed message than the other, or a photo or a more emotive
message. Each volunteer was presented with 12 choices.

After analysing the results, Liefeld found that emotionally driven messages
were particularly effective. Photographs were also highly compelling, raising
the impact 60-fold.

Liefeld then tested how the warning would affect how easy it was to identify
a brand. He asked the smokers what their favourite brand was and non-smokers had
to name the brand they were most familiar with. Then Liefeld asked them to find
and click on 30 separate images of that brand in a computer screen collage that
resembled a tobacconist鈥檚 display. Doubling the size of the health warning from
Canada鈥檚 current 30 per cent of the packet had no effect on the speed of brand
recognition. 鈥淭here was no difference in timing,鈥� says Liefeld.

Canada already has some of the strictest tobacco legislation in the world.
These new packaging proposals are part of a broader set of measures aimed at
curbing smoking even further. 鈥淐anadians who use tobacco products need to fully
understand the serious health hazards inherent in this lethal product,鈥� says
health minister Allan Rock. 鈥淭obacco is the only product on the market that will
result in a premature death for one out of every two users.鈥�

The proposals will be subject to 30 days of public consultation before
legislation is brought before the federal parliament.