Five decades of promotion techniques in cigarette advertising: a longitudinal content analysis.

This study examines frequencies and types of promotion techniques featured in five decades of cigarette advertising relative to five major smoking eras. Analysis of 1,133 cigarette advertisements collected through multistage sampling of 1954 through 2003 issues of three youth-oriented magazines found that 7.6% of the analyzed ads featured at least one promotion technique. Across smoking eras the proportion of promotion in the ads steadily increased from 1.6% in the "pre-broadcast ban era" to 10.9% in the "the pre-Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) era" and 9% in "post-MSA era." The increased use of sponsorships/events in cigarette ads for youth-oriented brands warrants more attention from tobacco control experts and government regulators.