Cigarette pack images, blunt warnings are effective: focus groups
OTTAWA — One image shows a woman’s torso with a cigarette being burned into her bladder through underwear.
Another depicts a man holding a colostomy bag, adding the words, “You may need to use a bag as a toilet for the rest of your life.”
There’s also a naked man holding a sign over his lower body that says, “out of order.”
The federal government is testing graphic new warnings to wrap around cigarette packages, and the stark message is clear: smoking is bad and it can damage more than your lungs. The proposed warnings, shown to focus
groups across the country, are meant to reinforce what people already know about cigarettes and add information that’s less widely known.
Canadians reported that cigarette packages with graphic images and pointed health warnings are more effective than clichés or rhyming slogans.
The health warnings considered most effective flag types of ailments smoking can cause, like colorectal and stomach cancers, as well as oral diseases and damage to blood vessels. The warnings are accompanied by explicit images showing real people who are suffering from the problems.
The health warnings that people found least effective had broader messages, like “Thought you would only try it once?”
Youth smokers and non-smokers, as well as young adult and adult smokers were asked to assess mockups of 39 potential health warnings for cigarette packages and 11 potential tag lines to accompany them, which include contact information for those wishing to seek help. Focus groups were held last winter in Halifax, Toronto, Vancouver and Quebec City.