Mass marketing efforts burn products into our heads, compelling us to buy them bulk.
Athletes dripping green sweat send us to the Gatorade aisle, and magazine ads of women with danishes attached to their derrieres are designed to make people reach for a Nutrigrain bar instead.
But not all of these products are good for us, and sometimes the best way to combat such advertising is only with reverse publicity.
At its peak in 1981, annual cigarette consumption in the United States totaled $640 billion, with nearly 50 percent of adult males being smokers.
Since then, annual consumption has decreased to around $430 billion, and fortunately, only about 22 percent of adults smoke regularly, according to www.lungusa.org. Though tobacco is still the No. 1 leading cause of preventable death in the nation, the trends are positive.
Advertising and public awareness campaigns are responsible, in large part, for this nationwide drop in smoking.
For years, tobacco executives lied about the harmful properties of cigarettes they were aware of and directly targeted minors in marketing campaigns.
But public recognition of the health problems caused by smoking led a backlash against the industry and culminated in a series of high-profile lawsuits by several states against the tobacco giants.
Recent surveys demonstrate the powerful effects of mass anti-smoking marketing campaigns. On Thursday, the Cox News Service reported that smoking levels are down among black Americans and now equal to white smokers (levels of smoking among blacks have been higher significantly for decades). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attributed the shift to several factors, primarily anti-smoking programs targeting African-Americans, a negative view of cigarettes among black teenagers and a backlash against tobacco advertising directed at minorities.
In contrast, surveys are finding that worldwide female consumption of cigarettes is rising to meet male levels. A report released at the 12th World Conference on Tobacco found that the gender gap in tobacco consumption among youths is closing.
"The increase in young girls' tobacco use was attributed mainly to aggressive marketing aimed at women in which the tobacco industry portrays smoking as fashionable," The Associated Press reported.
All of this information on the efficacy of public health awareness campaigns should serve as a template for the next public health challenge America must take on: fighting fat.
Obesity is now the latest "epidemic" hitting our consumer-crazed nation and arguably one of the most serious health care problems facing the country.
"Three out of every five Americans are now overweight, and some researchers predict that today's children will be the first generation of Americans whose life expectancy will actually be shorter than that of their parents," according to The New York Times Magazine.
Here is a perfect opportunity for positive marketing to have an effect on the way people eat and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Obviously, anti-fat campaigns would have to differ from anti-tobacco campaigns. Many people are predisposed genetically towards obesity; thus, the message should be how to eat right and prevent health risks, instead of cryptic commercials revealing the dark effects of eating - think, "This is your brain on food!"
The fight is underway already for some businesses that have money at stake in the form of employee health care compensations. For instance, Sprint has built a new 200-acre facility tailored toward fitness at its New York headquarters, along with installing slower elevators and windowed staircases to encourage people to Stairmaster their way into work. Other companies, like Union Pacific, have begun offering employees the latest prescription weight-loss pills.
And why not? There is a lot at stake for these companies: The federal Department of Health and Human Services estimated the cost of overweight and obese Americans at $117 billion in 2000 and said being overweight results in 300,000 deaths a year.
Just like the fight against tobacco, we will see a "battle of the bulge" building in the coming years. But this public awareness effort needs to be made uniform through schools, jobs and the government.
The causes of this "obesity epidemic" have blamed many things: from television to fast food companies to the higher contents of sugar in processed food. Regardless of placing blame, something needs to be done to make people aware it's not just a simple issue of being overweight.
So bring on the marketing gurus and ad agencies - only instead of selling gooey marshmallows bars in a box, let's have them begin to peddle a healthy lifestyle.
Ishtiaque Masud is an economics junior. Reach him at ishtiaque.masud@asu.edu.
