The Slow Goodbye to Cig Marketing?

Marketing a product that can kill isn't easy--and it's getting harder year by year as countries curb the marketing options available to tobacco companies.

Not only is advertising severely limited or banned in many nations, labels are highly regulated and, in many cases, must include verbal and/or graphic warnings of the health consequences of smoking. Wikipedia offers an interesting roundup of tobacco package warnings. The American Lung Association discusses tobacco industry marketing here. Above is one of the highly graphic package labels proposed by the FDA, designed to highlight the health dangers in full color.

Tobacco marketers are fighting back with lawsuits in some countries and stepped-up marketing in nations that don't yet have as many restrictions. However, with the ongoing campaign by the World Health Organization to combat smoking, the days of prominent cigarette marketing are slowly coming to an end.