Puffs on a Par

It has been more than a year since the suntanned Marlboro heman, the Silva Thins cad, the perky Virginia Slims Ms., the romping Salem couple and all the rest of the cigarette-selling gang have appeared on U.S. television. Yet the hopes of health authorities that a tar-free screen might help cut down on cigarette consumption have gone up in, well, a puff of smoke. Per capita use of cigarettes in 1971, at 132.4 packs, stayed just about on a par with that of other recent years, and total cigarette sales increased by a solid 3.5%.

Most of the increase resulted from the return of Vietvets, many of whom acquired heavy habits in military canteens, where untaxed cigarettes sell for about 11-c- a pack. The disappearance of broadcast commercials seems to have had little effect one way or the other. A reason may be that during their final years of life, Madison Avenue's well-paid, glamorous advocates of cigarettes were answered by a host of public-service messages that cited the scarifying findings of medical research into smoking. Most of these effective anti-tobacco ads disappeared from radio and TV after the ban on cigarette commercials.

Tobacco men are aglow with new optimism. Philip Morris, for example, increased U.S. cigarette sales last year by more than 11%, and is constructing an $80 million factory in Richmond, which it claims will be the world's largest assembler of cigarettes. In addition, the industry has made a notable saving on its advertising budget. Even though cigarette makers increased their nonbroadcast advertising by some $133 million in 1971, their total advertising expenditure declined by $78 million.

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