Why is Virginia Slim? Women and Cigarette Advertising

Abstract

Despite increasing efforts to reduce smoking among young women, they remain one of the fastest growing groups of cigarette smokers in the United States. A Means-end Chain framework, derived from marketing theory, is presented as a way to create effective anti-smoking messages. The intent is to explain how advertisers influence women to smoke in spite of repeated health warnings and public knowledge of the problems associated with tobacco products. After describing this marketing framework, a Means-end Chain analysis is applied to contemporary Virginia Slims advertisements, highlighting the associations between product attributes and women's values. The usefulness of this framework in developing anti-smoking messages is then demonstrated.