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It was the 1940's.  Cigarette manufacturers advertised their product as something resembling a medicinal wonder drug.  It could cure you of just about any ailment.  Cigarettes could relax you, and relaxation is a virtual panacea.  Cigarettes help social interactions: just look at those great social "smokers." 

That's how you do it.  Just "accentuate the positive, and eliminate the negative...and don't mess around with Mr Inbetween."

It must have worked!  The advertisers kept it up for years.

Until one manufacturer felt it was time to get the jump on the competition.  Tell the truth?  The whole truth?

No.

Kools cigarettes got the jump by advertising their deadly, addictive product with, "For a treat instead of a treatment...Smoke Kools."
 

August 1944

THIS IS KNOWN BY Medical Authorities about  PHILIP MORRIS "When smokers changed to Philip Morris, every case of irritation of nose or throat—due to smoking—either cleared up completely, or definitely improved! Facts reported in medical journals on clinical tests made by distinguished doctors...Proving this finer cigarette is less irritant!"

 

Some Rules for Advertisers (VERY EFFECTIVE GULL TRAPS) No one, but no one,  must see the bad qualities of your product.   (It really doesn’t have any, of course.) Tout the good qualities Exaggerate the good qualities if you must Invent good qualities if necessary At least imply good qualities if all else fails...and it might You can always visually associate good things with your product...even though irrelevant to it. ... Dr  Logic??    Who's he?   Who did he ever lick? And don't let the gulls know what you're pitching 'em 'til the end! Pseudoscience can happen when we turn these advertiser's rules on ourselves, when the deception becomes self-deception.

"It is essential in a democratic society that young people and adults learn how to think, learn how to make up their minds. They must learn how to think independently, and they must learn how to think together. They must come to conclusions, but at the same time they must recognize the right of other men to come to opposite conclusions.  So far as individuals are concerned, the art of democracy is the art of thinking and discussing independently together." From The Fine Art of Propaganda Institute for Propaganda Analysis, 1939 Visit Propagandacritic Web site  (at Temple University  Once upon a time, grade school children were taught about  the common techniques of "The Seven Tools of Propaganda" Were you? Smoking can help you lose weight! Smoking helped him lose weight. and gain emphysema, throat cancer , heart attacks... (cancer metastasized in early 2002) Died Mar 6, 2002, of emphysema.

"Good grief!" she thought to herself.  "Another supermarket supersucker!"

"I'll reinvest it," said the man to the checkout clerk.  "Give me two more tickets."