For many years, everybody that was somebody was a smoker. Most people may not remember it, but all the movie stars and celebrities smoked. Everyone including doctors, dentists, professional athletes, and movie stars were the faces of different cigarette brands.There were ads that were filled with people smoking because of the "clean, crisp taste" that it brought. Looking back, it's pretty comical.
Then we found out that smoking caused this thing call LUNG CANCER. Now, there are warning labels on every pack of cigarettes telling you that they cause cancer and are harmful to your health. In 2012, cigarette marketers spent $9.6 billion on cigarette advertising, which translates to about $1 million per HOUR. All trying to get us to purchase those things that literally kill us from the inside out. Yet, in 2014, people spent $82 billion on cigarettes.
Did you know that 80% of all public schools have a deal with either Coke or Pepsi? In 2010, Coca-Cola took in $35 billion in total sales. In 2013, they spent $3 billion on marketing. So, we know that the marketing is working (remember this is just ONE company).
How are they able to spend all of this money on marketing ?
In 1984, Coca-Cola and Pepsi announced that they were going to stop using sugar in their drinks and start using high fructose corn syrup. This is a cheaper way to make the soft drinks that are poisoning us with on a daily basis...
We are starting to put all the dots together and figure out that the increased amounts of sugar we are consuming mainly by soda is causing Type 2 Diabetes.
In 1980, there were ZERO cases of Type 2 Diabetes in children. In 2010, there were more than 57,000 cases reported. Let's remember that there are 2 types of diabetes, Type 1 (the one you are born with) and Type 2 (totally curable and totally preventable).
Most of this is caused by the indoctrination of marketing that our kids receive (kids start recognizing advertising between the ages of 2-3). I'll give you an example: In our house, we watch about 2-3 hours of TV a week. One of the shows we like to watch is American Ninja Warrior. The title sponsor of the show this season is Pom Wonderful, a pomegranate juice company. My 2 kids and I were walking down the aisles of the grocery store last week and we see a bottle of Pom Wonderful Juice. My 6 year old goes, “Hey daddy, look, that’s on American Ninja Warrior, can we get some??!!” with an excited tone in her voice. She has no clue what it is or how it tastes, all she knows is that she sees it one TV and wants to have some.
This type of marketing is great for those companies, but bad for our society. All of the “heroes” of today's age are on the front pages of the soft drink ads. Everyone from Lebron James and Michael Jordan to Drake and Beyonce.
All of the dollars spent on these ads is translating into a growing epidemic in our society that is killing us slowly. The difference between lung cancer and type 2 diabetes is that there is a cure for type 2 diabetes and numerous drugs out there to help people “keep it under control." Forty years ago, there was no cure for lung cancer. Believe me I know, I missed growing up with a grandfather because cigarettes caused my grandfather to die at the age of 55.
People say history repeats itself. If you look back at cigarette ads from 40-50 years ago, you see almost the exact same types of ads that you see today. The similarity is shocking.
I wrote this article for a few reasons.
- To hopefully open your eyes to the power of marketing and how we must teach our children to not only to make good decisions, but also learn why they are making those decisions.
- Encourage you to stay away from soft drinks and the disease-causing ingredients that they're made of.
- Show you that history is starting to repeat itself. Not in the form of cigarettes, but absolutely in the form of soda. They are not going to stop marketing to you and our kids. We are the ones who are going to have to stop consuming.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments below!
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