WHO HAS TIME TO BE WORRIED?

Would you mind very much if we plodded over to the cranberry bogs for a moment, so that we can see how our subconscious reacts to advertising? The farmers who raise and market those berries are not an affluent lot, and they can't afford to spend very much on advertising and promotion. As a matter of fact, their total advertising budget in 1960 was less than a twentieth of the sum spent on television alone by the tobacco industry.

But let's assume that at the time of the "cranberry scare," it was the cranberry people, not the cigarette manufacturers, who were the fourth largest advertisers in newspapers, the sixth largest in television, the twelfth largest in magazines, and the fourth largest in radio.
Let's also assume that they'd been in roughly this position of importance not for a year or two, but for decades.

That, for all your life, you had been seeing and hearing their advertisements.
That, during the cranberry scare, their advertising efforts had not ceased.
When you turned on your television set, then, this is what you'd see and hear:

—A world-famous athlete sips some cranberry juice. "Ummmmm," he says. "That's good!" Then he hits a homer.

—Beautiful young man offers beautiful young lady a spoon of cranberry jelly. She tastes, smiles, and cuddles over to him. Love plus good food—what a combination!

—Serious young man explains why "Grggssshh" cranberry juice is the best. First the berries are roasted, toasted, vacuumed, washed, sunned, and aged; then they are filtered through devices perfected at Oak Ridge, Cape Canaveral, and Boeing; then the juice is made to filter itself. And then it's ready to be served to the best people at the best clubs and cabarets. Fortunately, however, you too can buy it.

—Beauty queen, picture of radiant health, asks you if you aren't getting bored with your present fruit. Suggests you change to new cleaner, tangier, fresher, kinder cranberry jelly. If you do, it'll be like a cool swim in the seas off Majorca; it'll be the way fruit should taste; it'll be living!

My hunch is that after a few more commercials of this sort—buttressed by the print advertisements in your newspapers and magazines, and fortified by the fact that you already drink and eat a bushel of cranberries a day anyhow (and can't seem to get off the stuff)—that you'll forget about the cranberry scare mentioned a few hundred words back. As a matter of fact, with so many pretty folk eating cranberries in front of you, your own taste buds will probably have been stimulated . . . and off to the kitchen you'll go for another quick berry.

GETTING BACK TO HARSHER REALITY

I hope you don't think this little fantasy has been silly. I think it's deadly serious, and I use the word "deadly" advisedly. This is hypnotism and suggestion, affecting not only you but your children; if both husband and wife smoke, their children are twice as likely to smoke as are the children of non-smokers. The impact of cigarette advertising can't be measured in terms of packs or cartons; it has to be measured in terms of generations.

Consider this—in 1958, a year in which the public was being very adequately informed about the cancer and coronary diseases that are so frequently linked directly with excessive smoking, the consumption of cigarettes per person over 15 years of age reached a new peak. We consumed 430 billion cigarettes—about 3600 per person. And that was way back in '58, before teen-age smoking had reached such excessive proportions that a national television program on the subject was warranted!

The odds are that you're not going to be able to stop smoking until you learn to withstand, ignore, and even benefit from the advertising bombardment to which you are continuously subjected.

Soon I'll show you how to do that. In the words of the advertising profession, "it's fun."
Let's begin right now.

It may hurt-but let's search for some ads

After you have read this chapter, please hunt out as many cigarette commercials and tobacco advertisements as you can. It may sound juvenile of me, but I want you to talk back to those copywriters and salesmen.

Before you talk back, however, listen to the spiels and read the copy. Carefully, intently. Act as if your life depended on it, because it may . . .

The last thing the advertising agencies want you to do, of course, is to pay strict attention to every element of their message. If you listen carefully, you may challenge it. If you watch with more than half an eye, listen with more than half an ear, or do more than glance at a photograph, a headline and a tagline, you may realize that much of the advertisement makes no sense whatsoever.

Worst of all from the advertiser's point of view is the fact that if you consciously evaluate the message, you won't subconsciously accept the suggestions it contains. So all the advertiser wants you to get is an "image." A fleeting feeling of pleasure, security, luxury, wisdom, or romance . . .

What I want you to do, though, is to begin to destroy those images. And we've got to do it before you stop smoking, because an important part of