| dc.description.abstract | This paper describes consumer perception of cigarettes and how brand, packaging and social marketing can affect this. The aim of the study is to reveal how brand and packaging is used by the cigarettes manufacturers and how the government restrictions and usage of social marketing affect consumer perception.
The study was performed in Lithuania. In addition, study combined qualitative and quantitative methods to provide both the insights and possible approaches to the problem and empirical data to support the findings. Overall, study used unique set of tests to understand the implications of brand and packaging usage and government control of cigarettes industry as well as social marketing for associations towards cigarettes as an object.
The study supported the claim that brands can increase the salience of positive attitudes towards cigarettes while decreasing the strength of negative associations. In addition, study proved that different packages are perceived differently by consumers. To add more, plain packaging using graphic warnings was found to affect the perception of cigarettes both negatively and positively by creating innovation and uniqueness associations and increasing attention. Moreover this, social marketing was proven to be effective in terms of increase the relevance of negative cigarettes association and creation of negative associations. Still, different social marketing advertisements were perceived differently.
Overall, this paper has implications for all: tobacco industry, academic community and law makers. The findings of this paper can be used by all the parties: providing means to increase the reliability of further research, providing information about effectiveness of brand and packaging on creating associations towards cigarettes and discussing the means to control smoking through regulation of tobacco industry and information spreading through the use of social marketing. | nb_NO |
