I chose to write about the "Reach for a LUCKY instead of a sweet" ad created by Lucky Strike cigarettes and how they appealed to the average American woman of the 1920's. We'll be going over what the average American woman of the 20's was as well as why they were so fascinated with smoking cigarettes. Didn't they know that cigarettes cause cancer? Didn't they know that they could die, and leave their loved ones behind because of cancer? Did they truly believe that cigarettes were the miracle to keeping them skinny? Or do you think that cigarettes were more of an accessory than a need to be happy and healthy? The truth is, ads like this target women who want to look sexy and keep their slim figures, or maybe even lose weight, but also …show more content…

It was part of fashion. You see a beautiful woman in an ad where she’s smoking and you think, “I want be beautiful like that, I’ll try smoking those cigarettes.” It’s the same thing as looking at an ad where a woman has shiny healthy looking hair because of the product and thinking “I could have that hair if I use this product too.”

Do I think the “Reach for a LUCKY instead of a sweet” ad was effective? Yes, I do. In the 1920’s and well into the 1960’s it was definitely effective. So, did women know that cigarettes cause cancer? No. Did they know that they could die, and leave their loved ones behind from cancer? Certainly not. Did they truly believe that cigarettes were the miracle to keeping them skinny? Yes! And that is why this ad and many other cigarette ads like it were so convincing and persuasive. The American woman, who gained notoriety to become more independent, having the ability to do something that once only a man could do in public. This may have seemed like a simple advertisement, but I believe that it appealed to the American woman, the kind of woman that was free and individualistic. The kind of woman that believed in beauty and health, and what better delivered all of that on a silver plate than Lucky Strike cigarettes. This advertisement was certainly successful in appealing to a woman’s reasoning and emotion by use of their advertisement and