Tobacco industry may be using YouTube to target young consumers

In most countries there are severe restrictions on the ability of tobacco brands to advertise and market their products - including outright bans on TV advertising or even pro-tobacco images in programmes and films.

But a new study suggests that some of the top brands may be using YouTube videos to get around these prohibitions - and they may be using other "Web 2.0" sites to promote a positive image for their products.

The researchers looked at the top 20 videos on YouTube found when searching for top brand-name cigarettes such as Marlboro, L&M, Benson and Hedges, Winston and Mild Seven. They analysed 163 relevant clips in all, over 20 of which appeared to be "professionally made".

The clips included the 40 most viewed for Marlboro, Winston cigarettes, and Benson and Hedges; 24 English language videos for Mild Seven; and 19 for L&M cigarettes.

Those videos associated with Marlboro were the most heavily viewed, totting up an average of almost 104,000 views each, with one attracting 2 million views alone.

As for the content of the videos, the authors state that over 70% of it can be classified as "pro-tobacco", with a similar percentage of the videos containing brand images of people smoking branded tobacco products. Less than 4% of the content was considered to be "anti-tobacco".

Archive material, celebrities/movies, sports, and music were the most common content themes in the 163 clips. These are likely to appeal to young people, the authors said.

Almost one in three of the Marlboro video clips featured music, and one in four featured celebrities/movies. Around half of Mild Seven and Benson and Hedges had a sports theme.

Study author Dr George Thomson, from the University of Otago in New Zealand, said "the arguments used to limit tobacco imagery in film and TV appear to apply to internet videos".

He called on governments to ensure that pro-tobacco images are banned from online video content.

The study is published in the online journal Tobacco Control, a specialist title of the British Medical Journal.

This article was published on Thu 26 August 2010