Essay on Kool: Cigarette and Ad

Submitted By trinabina159
Words: 1185
Pages: 5

HACC

KOOL

“KOOL” When you watch TV, look through magazines, and even look at billboards eventually you will come across one of the most common ads you will find, cigarette ads. They are everywhere. Some cigarette ads are persuading you to smoke and some are even persuading you to quit. KOOL cigarettes decided to go with persuading people to smoke in the ad I will be sharing with you today. The ad is trying to persuade you to buy their brand of cigarettes by showing you a picture of a happy woman enjoying a KOOL cigarette. Her head is thrown back in laughter telling us that she is having a good time. KOOL cigarettes is presenting us with an ad that is insinuating that cigarettes are cool, un-harmful, and something that can make you happy. When I first looked at this ad I thought the most obvious part about it was that it is persuading you to smoke their brand of cigarettes because it is cool. “So good, it’s got to be KOOL!” is written in big green letters across the ad. In my opinion KOOL is trying to tell us that smoking their brand of cigarettes can make you cool. Newsflash, just because you smoke cigarettes does not make you cool. I also thought this because the lady in the picture is standing up against the wall with her head thrown back in laughter. The angle that the woman was shot at and the way her hands are laying on her chest makes me believe she is the center of attention which makes her feel “kool”. The more I looked at the ad I realized that written on it was “Nothing satisfies like KOOL’s smooth taste. America’s #1 menthol.” Once I saw this I realized that there may be another way people could take this. Some people, like me, will take this as KOOL trying to tell people that smoking is cool. Others may think it is KOOL advertising their cool, fresh taste of the menthol cigarette. Instead of the lady looking cool and like she is the center of attention people could think she is happy and enjoying the fresh menthol taste of her cigarette. Some people may also think it is trying to say smoking a KOOL cigarette could be a flavorful, smooth, and cool experience. This ad also puts off the vibe that smoking cigarettes is not that bad for you. When people tell you not to smoke they persuade you by telling you that you can get wrinkly skin, yellow teeth and nails, and bad breath. In the KOOL cigarette ad the women is smiling with amazing teeth. Not only are her teeth perfect but they are pearly white. Her teeth being pearly white gives off the allusion that you can keep your teeth white and clean if you smoke, this is not true. The ladies finger nails also look perfect, unlike most smokers. Many smokers have short, chewed up, yellow, fragile nails because of the way they get when they need a cigarette. Also the lady has perfect skin. There is not one flaw on her face, and not one wrinkle that I could point out. If I would compare the lady in the picture with a true, long-term smoker you would realize that true smoker’s actually have bad and wrinkly skin. Because of how healthy the lady looks her overall appearance tricks you into thinking that you could be a smoker and still be as healthy as her. The law does require cigarette companies to have a warning somewhere on their ads. This ad does have one but it is very small and it is near the bottom left corner. To me this shows that KOOL does not really care about their customers. If they did they would make the warning much larger. In this ad KOOL demonstrates their lack of concern with people dying from smoking. This ad does not demonstrate how harmful cigarettes actually can be. This KOOL advertisement is trying to draw people in by making it seem like there is nothing wrong with smoking cigarettes. It is doing this by making smoking seem cool, and un-harmful, and finally they are doing it by making it seem like smoking can make you happy. The mood of this ad is all around happy. You can tell because the lady in the image has a