Study: Kent and Marlboro – most brought cigarettes brands in Romania; anti-smoking mesages visible mainly on TV

Cristina Blanaru Creativity, Studies

Kent, Marlboro, Winchester , Viceroy and Winston are the top 5 most brought cigarettes brands in Romania, according to the Country Report – Global Adult Tobacco Survey, made public on March 5th and launched by Romanian Health Ministry as a monitoring tool to acknowledge tobacco consumption in Romania.

According to the study, the most anti-smoking information were seen by 83.6% of the study’s subjects in media or outdoor. TV was mentioned the most (76.7%), followed by outdoor ads (25.8%) and radio (25.3%).

The health and anti-smoking warnings on the packages were noticed by almost all smokers (95.2%), with more than a quarter (27.5%) of them being determined by those images to think about quitting. Out of the people that considered quitting smoking , the percentage of women (33.2%) was higher than the percentage of men (24.7%).

Moreover, 40.5% of respondents also noticed some form of advertising, sponsorship or promotion for cigarettes. Men (45.2%), people with ages of 15-24 y.o. (58.8%) and people living in urban areas (50.4%) noticed more the smokes promotion than women (36.1%), people over 25 y.o. (37,1%) and people living in rural areas (28.0%).

Most people noticed in store promotions (26.7%) and online promotions (6.8%). People living in urban areas were more exposed to online tobacco advertising than the ones living in rural areas (9.4% vs. 3.6%).

In terms of age, people aged 15-24 y.o. noticed more online tobacco advertising (16.9%) compared to people aged 25 y.o or older (5,0%).

Also, from the respondents, around 5% noticed tobacco sponsorships for sports events.

When it came of the way of promoting cigarettes, the most common were gifts (8.1%), followed by female promoters (7.0%), products customized with cigarettes name or brand logo (5.2%), free samples (4.4%), price promotions (4.0%), coupons (4.0%) and direct mailing (1.2%).

According to study’s conclusions, the fact that more than a third of adults noticed different forms of tobacco advertising, promotions or sponsorships is a reason to adopt new rules and regulations in order to eliminate from the market these forms of advertising and promotion.

The study was made in 2011, on a national representative sample, and involved people over 15 y.o. The study targeted 5,629 houses and the total answer rate was of 88.5%.