Assignment:
The Cigarette Advertisement Case
In an article in the Journal of Marketing (January, 1992), Mazis, Ringold, Perry and Denman discuss the perceived ages of models in cigarette advertisements. To quote the authors:
Most relevant to our study is the Cigarette Advertiser's Code, initiated by the tobacco industry in 1964. The code contains nine advertising principles related to young people, including the following provision (Advertising Age 1964): "Natural persons depicted as smokers in cigarette adverting shall be at least 25 years of age and shall not be dressed or otherwise made to appear to be less than 25 years of age."
Tobacco industry representatives have steadfastly maintained that code provisions are still being observed. A 1988 Tobacco Institute publication, "Three Decades of Initiatives by a Responsible Cigarette Industry," refers to the industry code as prohibiting advertising and promotion "directed at young people" and as "requiring that models in advertising must be, and appear to be, at least 25 years old." John R. Nelson, Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Phillip Morris, recently wrote, "We employ only adult models in our advertising that not only are but look over 25" (Nelson 1990). However, industry critics have charged that current cigarette advertising campaigns use unusually young-looking models, thereby violating the voluntary industry code.
Suppose that a sample of 50 people is randomly selected at a shopping mall. Each person in the sample is shown a typical cigarette advertisement and is asked to estimate the age of the model in the ad. The 50 perceived age estimates so obtained are as follows:
|
26
|
30
|
23
|
27
|
27
|
32
|
28
|
19
|
25
|
29
|
|
31
|
28
|
24
|
26
|
29
|
27
|
28
|
17
|
28
|
21
|
|
30
|
28
|
25
|
31
|
22
|
29
|
18
|
27
|
29
|
23
|
|
28
|
26
|
24
|
30
|
27
|
25
|
26
|
28
|
20
|
24
|
|
29
|
32
|
27
|
17
|
30
|
27
|
21
|
29
|
26
|
28
|
a.Construct (1) a stem-and-leaf display, (2) a frequency histogram, and (3) a relative frequency histogram of the 50 perceived ages.
b. Using your answer in part a, infer the shape of the relative frequency distribution describing the population of the ages that would be perceived by all possible shoppers.
c. What percentage of the perceived ages are below the industry's code provisions (of 25 years old)? Do you think that this percentage is too high?