On April 1, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed a law that officially prohibited cigarette advertisements on television and radio. This marked a major shift in the way cigarette companies marketed their products, as they had to quickly transition their advertising costs from broadcast media to print media. The European Union and the World Health Organization (WHO) have both specified that tobacco advertising should not be allowed. In response to the law, television and radio stations stopped broadcasting tobacco commercials after 7 in the morning. On December 31, 1970, all tobacco advertisements on radio, television and neon signs were banned, and only anti-smoking slogans were allowed to be broadcast.
In 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed the legalization of the Tobacco Product Control Act, which required all cigarette packs to include hazard warnings. Tobacco advertising in print media is now only allowed in material aimed at men aged 18 and over, mainly in men's magazines and newspapers. However, the law does allow for exemptions to be granted for events of international importance that could not be held in Australia if tobacco advertising were banned. In the United Kingdom, famous tobacco advertising campaigns included You're Never Alone with a Strand and Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet. In recent years, states and localities have focused more on restricting the sale of tobacco products rather than on advertising practices to avoid facing First Amendment challenges. Banned on television, ads are now being printed; banned in all conventional media, ads become sponsorships; they are banned as advertising and packaging in stores, advertising goes into the hands of complicit (undisclosed) marketing representatives, sponsored online content, viral marketing and other stealthy marketing techniques. In Hong Kong, tobacco advertising was banned on December 1, 1990. In the United Kingdom, tobacco companies began sponsoring sports after the 1965 ban on television advertising for cigarettes.
After the publication of the Surgeon General's report on smoking and health in 1964, pressure increased to limit how and where big tobacco companies could advertise. In Bangladesh, tobacco advertising is banned in all print and electronic media, including at retail outlets. The FCC decision also required television stations to broadcast anti-smoking ads at no cost to the organizations that offered them.
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