Psychology of Cigar Ad for Dunhill/Visa

In the June 17th issue of the San Francisco Examiner, Stefanie Salter describes a 16-page magazine campaign ad for Alfred Dunhill and Visa. She describes the ad's opening photo as "seven middle-aged white men -- fat cigars in hand or mouth ..... all wealthy , influential San Franciscans, ..... photographed at the San Francisco Yacht Club." The ad copy extols the pleasure of "..... the quite ritual of cigar smoking, and the elegance of understated style." Featured are: a $15,000, mahogany-lined humidor made of English silver and a foot-long cigar lighter for $1,200; a $595 guillotine-style disk cigar cutter; a $795 sterling silver cigar tube; and a $495 wooden travel humidor.

Although Salter does not discuss the health hazards inherent in cigar smoking for the smoker or those nearby, she concludes the column with this comment:

"The huge Dunhill/Visa ad is just one element in an offensive national marketing trend. From Scotch to automobiles, the pervasive attitude being peddled is superiority through conspicuous consumption; the gap between rich and poor is something to celebrate -- and flaunt."

I recall a comment by Kurt Adler a few years ago about the psychological effect of advertising very expensive automobiles on television. He felt that it was cruel to flaunt these products in the faces of so many people who would never be able to afford them, many of whom were living in poverty. Philip Slater, in Wealth Addiction, echoed a similar sentiment when he described the motives of wealth addicts who not only wanted to accumulate vast amounts of money to indulge themselves, they also wanted to make sure that others could not have what they possessed. Slater also suggested that advertising was an important tool for creating a mass addiction to wealth, so that aspirant addicts would envy the ones who had arrived and not notice how much had been stolen from them.

Alfred Adler's original writings about the neurotic tendencies of superiority and depreciation offer compelling insights into the psychology of some contemporary advertising.

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(Phrase added), by Henry Stein, 6/19/97

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