Perceptions of Plain and Branded Cigarette Packaging Among Norwegian Youth and Adults: a Focus Group Study

Introduction: In Norway, packaging is one of the few remaining ways for tobacco companies to promote their products. Plain packaging of tobacco products could be a means to limit this promotion.

Methods: Eleven focus group interviews with daily, occasional, and former smokers and nonsmokers (N = 69) aged 16-50 were undertaken to explore perceptions of different cigarette brands, the role of package design in communicating brand images, and how participants perceived cigarette packages when important design elements such as colors, symbols, logos, and branded fonts were removed.

Results: Distinct images of brands and user identities associated with these were narrated. Elements of the package design such as colors, images, and fonts were described as configuring brand images. Compared with current, completely branded cigarette packages, packages that displayed progressively fewer branding design elements were perceived increasingly unfavorably and as detracting from the images that packages otherwise communicate.

Conclusions: The findings indicate that packaging is vital to consumer identification with and differentiation between cigarette brands and that a policy of plain packaging could be useful in reducing the impact of packaging in promotion of tobacco products.