Assignment 5

Does the fashion industry continue to use smoking to sell fashion in spite of the current anti-smoking opinion? Why exactly do they believe including cigarettes in their advertising is beneficial to their brand?

Whilst investigating whether the media promotes smoking in semester one, some interesting points arose. Such as whether the problem was the media promoting smoking or anti-smoking campaigns ineffectiveness to counteract it? Young people may be able to identify more with the positive portrayal of smoking in the media than health campaigns designed to try and solve the problem. It may be the case for many young people that smoking is primarily about image and that is why the fashion industry has such an impact on promoting it. The fashion industry is unlikely to be using smoking to sell tobacco, but are they still are using images of tobacco to sell fashion? If so, in what way do designers, editors and photographers believe that linking tobacco with fashion is beneficial to their product? I propose to investigate this through some of the research methods learned in semester two, such as observations, questionnaires and interviews.

It may be the case that designers are simply trying to create a rebellious image for their brand through the inclusion of tobacco in advertising to appeal to young people. However I hypothesize that it may be more about the bad publicity gained. For example a punk band can sing about rebellion and dress the part but without actually being rebellious they lack credibility. Credibility might be the key, so is this what designers are aiming for by using smoking images in opposition to our present anti smoking society? By snubbing the anti-smoking movement they perhaps appear daring and that’s what fashion is somewhat about.

Firstly I will need to confirm whether the fashion industry does continue to use images of smoking in its publications and advertisements. To confirm this, I intend to examine a sample of magazines. These will be taken from the top five best selling UK fashion magazines; Glamour, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Instyle and Elle. I will review a year’s publication to get a fair impression of each, primarily looking for images with smoking content. By closely analyzing them I will be able to see what atmosphere is being conveyed in the pictures and themes that emerge. For example certain styles of clothes or other items used in the image such as super cars etc and what message they communicate.

After collating the themes and attitudes found in the magazines I will conduct short semi structured interviews with the editors, designers and photographers who have included smoking in their work. I mainly want to find out what they believe the artistic benefits of including tobacco products are. ‘Smoking is often used in these magazine spreads to capture a certain mood or image’ (Amos, 1992). Is this true and what exactly is it about adding a cigarette that they believe will help make their product more appealing? Or are they using it to provoke? Do they feel the bad publicity they might receive would be beneficial? I will also ask their views on the modern stigma of smoking and the current health warnings against it. Do they feel a responsibility when portraying smoking as stylish? Is it purely art? In addition I think it will be interesting to get the perspective of vocal anti-smoking figures within the business. I will ask them why they think many use tobacco products and why they personally feel so strongly against it. After conducting the interviews I will collate my information looking for isolated and common beliefs.  Throughout the process I will insure anonymity to all participants.

I had initially thought about using questionnaires instead of interviews. However I felt that through interviews I might get more in-depth results. The types of people I wish to question are often busy professionals and questionnaires might get intercepted or lost by secretaries etc. I have also considered the possibility of phone interviews in the case of the interviewee being too busy. If neither face-to-face or telephone is convenient I will ask if a short questionnaire would be more suitable. I hope that by doing this I will get as wide a range of answers as possible.

After analyzing my findings from the interviews I will take my information to two focus groups of young people to elucidate their opinions on the beliefs of the designers. In order to be economical with resources and time I will use a group of students from Dundee University, from a range of courses and backgrounds. To generate conversation I intend to use prompt questions and record the results through service design tools such as group sketching and use a tape recording of the conversations primarily for reference to pick out key words and themes. The problem with just approaching students is they may be from a particular demographic and they might not be representative of all young people. To balance this I would approach youth workers from an economically deprived area to help conduct a similar focus group to insure I had a wider range of results.

Through analyzing literature and magazine spreads, interviewing professionals and conducting focus groups with young people. I will attempt to find out why tobacco is continually used to promote products. It will be interesting to compare the opinions of the professionals as to why they do it, with views of young people to see whether they believe that they are in fact influenced by smoking imagery.