Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Advertising as information

1999; BMJ; Volume: 8; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1136/tc.8.3.348

1468-3318

S. CHAPMAN,

Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology

Advertising as informationNext time you hear a tobacco industry representative extolling the neo-classical economists' defense of tobacco advertising as "information", here's a good example to put the claim to the test.The ad for Imperial Tobacco's Embassy was published in the scatological British comic Viz, immensely popular particularly among 14-year-old schoolboys who like reading about the expletive-deleted adventures of characters such as Johnny Fartparts and Buster Gonad, a boy with enormous testicles.The written text of the ad: "Tar, but no tar very much" (translation: "thank you, but no thank you very much") simultaneously alludes to the brand's low-tar status and to the veterinarian's request to be given assistance in his search inside the cow's rear end.But it is beside the point to deconstruct the ad for its propositional forms.Aside from the concern that this ad falsely suggests that the brand has "no tar", its semiotics oVer little to