Term 2:
Issues Regarding teenagers
Link for the original article:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/HealthScience/Store_ads_spur_teens_to_smoke_Study/articleshow/2020125.cms
The chosen article is mainly a survey about the increase in smoking in teens. It gives information about a survey that was conducted in the United States. This survey mainly focused on the statistics about the teens, such as the percentage increase in smoking, estimated number of students, etc. and also briefly explains the reasons why this increase in smoking of cigarettes could have occurred. It is stated that the point-of-sale advertising is mainly responsible for the teenagers smoking a lot of cigarettes. This is especially in the case of tobacco and cigarettes.
This is a very serious issue among students in countries all over the world as smoking at this young age is indeed very bad for health. Usually, teenagers do not take smoking as a serious thing; rather, they take it very lightly as a matter of their everyday lives. And with the point-of-sale, it’s even more attractive as there are free gifts to be offered. This is really very distressing when seen from the perspective of the teenagers. And it is said, and also found to be true, that once a person gets addicted to smoking, it’s really hard to quit.
It was mentioned by the leader of the study, Sandy Slater, that most of the cigarettes were sold like hot cakes in shops where teens shop. This really shows how teens easily get influenced, sometimes negatively, by the things around them.
There are really quite a number of things that can be inferred from the article. The cigarettes are being sold in malls and other places where there are also other things sold. So we can see that the main motive of the teen sis not really cigarettes, but shopping in general. They see attractive packets of cigarettes, along with free gifts, discounts and point-of-sale offers, which tempt them to buy these cigarettes. And as I earlier stated, once addicted, it is very hard to quit smoking.
So it can be realized that rather than the cigarettes, it is those other so called “add ons” due to which the rise of purchase of cigarettes has gone up in teens.
From the point of view of the manufacturers and distributors, it is purely marketing. Recently, many new brands of cigarettes have come up and upset the monopoly of the established brands like Wills, etc. there has been a lot of competition and the manufacturers are offering many gifts and discounts in order to outrun the rivalry and boost their own product. Young students are the easiest to target because they have completely wrong ideas about many things, smoking and drinking being one of them. The article says that 90% of the 13.1 billion spent on marketing are on these marketing policies.
Thus, it is observed that there is a large and distressing increase in the cigarettes purchased, mainly due to marketing techniques. The only possible way out of this situation is to educate the teenagers about the ill-effects of smoking and the marketing policies of the manufacturers.
Link for the original article:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/HealthScience/Store_ads_spur_teens_to_smoke_Study/articleshow/2020125.cms
The chosen article is mainly a survey about the increase in smoking in teens. It gives information about a survey that was conducted in the United States. This survey mainly focused on the statistics about the teens, such as the percentage increase in smoking, estimated number of students, etc. and also briefly explains the reasons why this increase in smoking of cigarettes could have occurred. It is stated that the point-of-sale advertising is mainly responsible for the teenagers smoking a lot of cigarettes. This is especially in the case of tobacco and cigarettes.
This is a very serious issue among students in countries all over the world as smoking at this young age is indeed very bad for health. Usually, teenagers do not take smoking as a serious thing; rather, they take it very lightly as a matter of their everyday lives. And with the point-of-sale, it’s even more attractive as there are free gifts to be offered. This is really very distressing when seen from the perspective of the teenagers. And it is said, and also found to be true, that once a person gets addicted to smoking, it’s really hard to quit.
It was mentioned by the leader of the study, Sandy Slater, that most of the cigarettes were sold like hot cakes in shops where teens shop. This really shows how teens easily get influenced, sometimes negatively, by the things around them.
There are really quite a number of things that can be inferred from the article. The cigarettes are being sold in malls and other places where there are also other things sold. So we can see that the main motive of the teen sis not really cigarettes, but shopping in general. They see attractive packets of cigarettes, along with free gifts, discounts and point-of-sale offers, which tempt them to buy these cigarettes. And as I earlier stated, once addicted, it is very hard to quit smoking.
So it can be realized that rather than the cigarettes, it is those other so called “add ons” due to which the rise of purchase of cigarettes has gone up in teens.
From the point of view of the manufacturers and distributors, it is purely marketing. Recently, many new brands of cigarettes have come up and upset the monopoly of the established brands like Wills, etc. there has been a lot of competition and the manufacturers are offering many gifts and discounts in order to outrun the rivalry and boost their own product. Young students are the easiest to target because they have completely wrong ideas about many things, smoking and drinking being one of them. The article says that 90% of the 13.1 billion spent on marketing are on these marketing policies.
Thus, it is observed that there is a large and distressing increase in the cigarettes purchased, mainly due to marketing techniques. The only possible way out of this situation is to educate the teenagers about the ill-effects of smoking and the marketing policies of the manufacturers.
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