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A difference that makes a difference: young adult smokers’ accounts of cigarette brands and package design

Correspondence to:
Janne Scheffels, Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research, PO Box 565, Sentrum, 0105 Oslo, Norway; js{at}sirus.no

Objective: To explore young adult smokers’ construction of meaning and identity in accounts of cigarette brands and cigarette package design, and the processes by which positive associations with a brand may be reinforced and sustained.

Methods: Qualitative in-depth interviews with 21 smokers aged 18–23 in Norway, where advertising for tobacco has been banned since 1975.

Results: Cigarette brand and cigarette package design appear as an integrated part of young smokers’ constructions of smoker identities, enabling the communication of personal characteristics, social identity and positions in hierarchies of status.

Conclusion: Through branding and package design tobacco companies appear to be able to promote their products in a country where advertising is banned, by means of similar principles that make advertising effective: by creating preferences, differentiation and identification.