News pieces about Kool and Newport cigarette brands targeting blacks tend to portray the brands and their advertising as nefarious and racist.
A quick search found stories like How the tobacco industry targeted Black Americans with menthol smokes, Why Big Tobacco Targeted Blacks With Ads for Menthol Cigarettes, Study: Newport Marketed Cigarettes Directly to Black Kids, and Newport, the top cigarette brand for black Americans, is aggressively targeting youths.
Maybe I’m misreading those implications, but they seem there. A person in this video calls it exploitation and this video calls it predatory.
Likewise, Philip Morris: How Virginia Slims Targeted Women to Sell Cigarettes describes marketing targeting women as sexist.
I don’t see the implications of nefariousness, racism, or sexism in Marlboro marketing to young white men, yet it’s targeted toward young men. I mean, he’s called a “Marlboro Man.”
I see problems with all tobacco advertising. If we accept advertising tobacco, I can see problems with targeting children, with their limited education, self-awareness, and ability to regulate their behavior, but how is differentiating adults and marketing to different groups a problem for some groups but not others? I’m sure there’s an answer I’m too ignorant to see. Or is targeting men portrayed as sexist as much?