Cigarette Boxes in Germany - Terrifying Images to Encourage Quitting

Picked up these used, empty cigarette boxes on the sidewalk while on vacation in Frankfurt, Germany. Wow! What a far cry from our cigarette box warnings in the states.

The differences between the U.S. and Europe in terms of ‘branding’ are astounding and provocative to say the least. I wonder how these cigarette companies even make money with images like this. Do people still buy them? What is their revenue like? It’s clear that the end goal is obviously to encourage people to quit with images like this.

It would be interesting to see a case study done on these, if one doesn’t already exist, to see how effective these box images are in deterring people from even buying them let alone encourage them to quit. The images are pretty terrifying in my humble opinion and truly show the ugly side of smoking. I personally would NOT want to buy or use a product with this kind of marketing and am glad to see this execution showcasing the reality that can come from cigarette smoking. If this is practiced throughout Europe, it’d be interesting to see some stats on how effective it as a marketing tactic in the stop smoking movement.

What do you think?

If you’re from Europe, have you seen boxes like these?

If you live in the U.S. would images like this deter you from buying cigarettes?