Tobacco companies frequently seek to associate their products with certain lifestyle images in an attempt to foster brand-specific identities for their cigarettes. As demonstrated by industry-sourced segmentation analyses, for example, companies divide smokers into broad groups based on personal characteristics and strategise on how to adapt their products to increase attractiveness for these imagined communities.1–3 Linking tobacco products with the hallmarks of the digital age, such as social media and innovative technologies, seems to have become a marketing goal for a number of tobacco companies.4–6 Indeed, several studies have hypothesised that the use of mobile phones and smoking may be connected (either as complimentary or competing behaviours) in light of the fact that these products may provide users with opportunities for identity formation and rebellion.7–9 Drawing from a larger study of top selling international brands, we report three illustrative case studies which underscore a recognisable pattern of digital culture in package design.

Between July 2011 and January 2012, we collected a sample of top market share cigarette brands comprising 193 cigarette packages from 23 countries as part of the wider Chatter Box project hosted at the University of Toronto's Ontario Tobacco Research Unit. The countries targeted were culturally diverse, drawn from five continents (North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia). Using a combination of qualitative content analysis and semiotic analysis, we identified a common theme of ‘digital culture’ among a series of packs from countries including South Korea, Japan, Lebanon, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Russia, Serbia, the Netherlands and the USA.

Kent …