Erickson 1
Adam Erickson
Professor Baxter
ENGL 1010
4 Nov 2024
Rhetorical Analysis of Cigarette Advertisements
Cigarettes with how they have been advertised throughout the years have changed a lot. I
will be going into three different cigarette advertisements and analyzing what strategies they use
in their ads and what purpose they serve for their audience on what they want the audience to do.
These ads will also take place across different time periods as the first ad will be from the 20th
century, while the other two will be more modern cigarette related ads within the later 2000s.
To begin with, the first advertisement is of Marlboro cigarettes in the 20th century, back
at a time where society considered the advertising of cigarettes to be okay for businesses to do.
The ad shows a man smoking a cigarette with a picture of the Marlboro cigarettes to the left side
and some large white text on the right side that says Come to where the flavor is. The audience
this ad is made for is for people that do smoke cigarettes, with the purpose of wanting them to
smoke their brand of cigarettes, Marlboro. Some rhetorical strategies that Marlboro uses to
advertise their product is imagery and persuasion. They use imagery through the picture of the
man dressed as a cowboy smoking a cigarette, with the cigarette product to the left hand side of
the ad. This highlights the audience and subject because considering how cowboys are usually
associated as very masculine, this could mean that Marlboro is advertising cigarettes to men.
Having the picture of the cigarette pack to the left highlights the subject of what they are trying
to advertise. Marlboro also uses persuasion through using the text that says Come to where the
flavor is. This highlights the idea that the text, alongside the imagery shown and prior discussed,
Erickson 2
is to bring men over to this brand of cigarettes, saying that it will make them more masculine.
Therefore, that is how Marlboro uses imagery and persuasion to get their audience of men to buy
their cigarettes.
Another advertisement on cigarettes in addition to Marlboro, is Blu’s e-cigarettes. This
advertisement was made in the mid-2010s, a point in time where cigarettes aren’t approved of
being advertised. This was also during a time when e-cigarettes, or vapes, were very new, so
there wasn’t much regulation on what they can and cannot be advertised. The advertisement
includes a side-view profile of a man in a suit, fedora, and a pair of sunglasses, while smoking an
e-cigarette. It also includes a large piece of text on the top left that says WHY QUIT? SWITCH
TO BLU with a small paragraph below the text that describes what Blu is about and their main
purpose. Blu, like Marlboro, also uses rhetorical strategies of imagery and persuasion to promote
their product. The imagery of the ad is shown through the man in the suit, hat and sunglasses.
This outfit is shown as very fancy and sophisticated. This can show the idea that Blu is trying to
say that their e-cigarettes are a fancy and smarter alternative to tobacco cigarettes, that you
would be considered better by switching to Blu. They also use persuasion through the
information on the top left side of the ad. They mainly talk about how Blu is a smart choice for
smokers that want to change, yet don’t want to quit, with a white bolded text at the bottom of the
paragraph saying Nobody likes a quitter, so make the switch today. The persuasion not only
highlights their audience being smokers that want to change their smoking habit, but also further
emphasizing the idea that e-cigarettes are a smarter alternative that has everything you enjoy
about smoking and nothing else, to quit one product so that the smokers can instead use their
product, Blu. Therefore, that is how Blu uses imagery and persuasion to advertise their brand of
e-cigarettes.
Erickson 3
Cited Sources
Advertisement 1: “Cigarette Ads.” Www.csun.edu,
www.csun.edu/science/health/tobacco/index.html. Accessed 4 Nov. 2024
Advertisement 2: “E-Cigarettes: Marketing”
https://www.tobaccotactics.org/article/e-cigarettes-marketing/. Accessed 4 Nov. 2024