• One study found that a child who is aware of tobacco promotional activities and has a friend who owns tobacco promotional items is 3.4 times more likely to smoke than others who do not.¹¹
• At least two other studies have shown to that desire to own tobacco promotional items increases youth susceptibility to smoking almost as much as does actually owning those items.^12,13
       

• If a child is not only aware of, but has also participated in, tobacco promotional activities, (s)he is 9.3 times more likely to smoke than kids not aware of tobacco promotions. And if that child received free tobacco product samples while participating in a tobacco promotion, that child will be 21.8 times more likely to smoke than the other kids.¹⁴
“[Jack Daniels’ merchandizing campaign is] an example of a viable positioning executed in a ‘nonstandard’ but authentic and unpretentious way, which not only reached [young adult] consumers, but converted [younger adults] into walking billboards.”

RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company, from a document entitled, Are Younger Adult Smokers Important?, 1985.

"[T]he base of our business is the high school student.” Lorillard .

- Tobacco Company Executive, 1978

• In a longitudinal study, children who owned a tobacco promotional item and who named a brand that attracted their attentions, were 2.7 times more likely to become established
  smokers within the next 5 years.¹⁵
• Research has shown that branded tobacco paraphernalia is used by youth to ‘try on’ or to assimilate the identity of a smoker.¹⁶ As shown in Philip Morris documents as early as 1969, the
  permanence of that ‘identity’ is soon to follow: “Smoking a cigarette for the beginner is a symbolic act, . . . ‘I am not my mother’s child, I’m tough, I am an adventurer, I’m not square’ . . . As the force from the psychological symbolism subdues, the pharmocological effect takes over to sustain the habit.”¹⁷
  

References

¹¹Altman, David G., et al. “Tobacco Promotion and Susceptibility to Tobacco Use among Adolescents Aged 12-17 Years in a Nationally Representative Sample.” American Journal of Public Health. Nov 1996; 86(11):1590-1593.
¹²Feighery, Ellen, et al. “Seeing, wanting, owning: the relationship between receptivity
to tobacco marketing and smoking susceptibility in young people.” Tobacco Control.
1998; 7:123-128. Available at http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/reprint/7/2/123
¹³Pierce, John P., et al. “Tobacco industry promotion of cigarettes and adolescent
smoking.” JAMA. February 1998; 279(7):511-515.
¹⁴Altman, David G., et al. “Tobacco Promotion and Susceptibility to Tobacco Use among Adolescents Aged 12-17 Years in a Nationally Representative Sample.” American Journal of Public Health. Nov 1996; 86(11):1590-1593.
¹⁵Biener, Lois, and Siegal, Michael. “Tobacco Marketing and Adolescent Smoking:
More support for a casual inference.” American Journal of Public Health. March
2000; 90(3):407-11.
¹⁶Feighery, Ellen, et al. “Seeing, wanting, owning: the relationship between receptivity to tobacco marketing and smoking susceptibility in young people.” Tobacco Control. 1998; 7:123-128. Available at http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/reprint/7/2/123
¹⁷17“Why One Smokes.” 1969 Draft Report to the Philip Morris Board of Directors. Document Bates NO.1003287836.