Almost everyone has seen the movie, The Muppets, but what many of you don’t know, is that a tobacco company supplied their products for free to be used in the movie. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that
it is right for there to be tobacco products in a G rated movie for five to eleven year olds, tobacco and alcohol companies are targeting, underage kids and teenagers, and it has been going on for quite a while. In a 1988-1997, more than 85% of the top 25 movies contained tobacco use and brand appearances, which were also present in 20% of the movies rated for children.
Alcohol companies are targeting teens by creating and extensively marketing “alcopops” – sweetened, lightly carbonated drinks that don’t taste like alcohol (think Mike’s Hard Lemonade). Also, alcohol companies spend millions of dollars on advertising. Teens aged 12 to 19 ranked ads for Budweiser and Bud Light as number one when asked to choose their favorite television commercial in a spring 2004 study. Among the other brands ranked behind Budweiser in popularity in teens’ top 10 were GEICO, Pepsi, M&Ms and Nike ads. Ads for Miller Light were eighth on their top ten lists, and were favorites for more teens than ads for NFL, Blockbuster, Mountain Dew or McDonalds. Tobacco and alcohol companies should be allowed to only show ads on adult programs. And stop targeting teens with their advertising.
Don’t you think someone should put a stop to this?