Level: Grades 4 to 6

Author: This lesson has been adapted from Smoke-Free for Life, a smoking prevention curriculum supplement from the Nova Scotia Department of Health, Drug Dependency and Tobacco Control Unit.

Overview

In this lesson, students learn how the tobacco industry exploits the needs, wishes and desires of various target audiences in order to foster brand loyalty. Students explore how the tobacco industry creates a false image of the effects of smoking in order to make smoking appear to be a desirable activity. Assuming the roles of marketing personnel in a tobacco company, students suggest ways to exploit teenage girls, teenage boys, and adults.

Learning Outcomes

Students will demonstrate:

• an understanding of how the tobacco industry uses personality profiles about target audiences in order to market cigarettes
• an awareness of how the tobacco industry downplays the health risks associated with smoking
• an awareness of how advertisers use specific strategies to target youth
• an understanding of why the tobacco industry needs to recruit replacement smokers

This lesson and all associated documents (handouts, overheads, backgrounders) is available in an easy-print, pdf kit version.