Do plain packaging and anti-smoking campaigns work reverse? Results from a pilot study

Despite a combined effort of over 37 million dollar spent for plain packaging and anti–smoking campaign in 2012–13 in Australia, recent figure show that tobacco companies sold over 21.074 billion cigarettes in Australia in 2013. This is a growing challenge, and hence the current paper aims to explore how smokers perceive plain packages. This study employed a qualitative research approach and collected data from eleven smoker–participants. The findings show that the smoker–participants barely look at the plain package images and health warning messages, and they were also found to be insensitive to the plain package images and health warning messages. They often adopt different measures to avoid seeing these images. Although the plain package creates awareness about the smoking related diseases, there is a slow pace of gripping the health related messages among some of the participants. Carefully designed campaigns with emotional appeals, and intervention programs could further bring the effectiveness of the plain package initiatives.