January 1, 1971
The last TV cigarette advertisement ran on January 1, 1971, promoting Virginia Slims; "you've come a long way baby"
It was in April of 1970 that then-president President Nixon signed into law the "Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act" that banned all advertising of cigarettes on television and radio. The ban took effect on 2 January 1971.
At the last possible minute, the last Virginia Slims ad ran on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. We can't confirm if the above is the exact ad that ran, but you get the idea.
Here are some more TV commercials from the past. Maybe you have never seen one, or they may bring back some past memories. At any event, enjoy.
Fred and Barney for Winston
Doctors promoting cigarettes
A variety of commercials
Another Virginia Slim
There's no way that the virginia slims ad was from 1971. INXS' song, "New Sensation" is from the 80s. Perhaps this commercial is Canadian or European in origin, but certainly not from 1971 in the United States.
ReplyDeleteYeah thanks, we were just replacing it when you commented. We seemed to have mixed up the files. The replacement we think is the one , but it is hard to tell, not much info is given and we snagged this video from an archive and formatted it into our you tube account.
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