Big Tobacco’s Global Reach on Social Media

So the industry that brought the world the Marlboro Man, Joe Camel and slogans like “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet” has latched onto the selfie generation’s screens in a highly adaptive way that skirts the advertising rules of old.

“What they are doing is a really effective way to get around existing laws to restrict advertising to young people,” said Robert V. Kozinets, a public relations professor at the University of Southern California, who led an international team of researchers examining the tobacco industry’s use of social media.