Tobacco companies begin to spend less on traditional advertising 'buys'.

One (limited) way of monitoring the success of advertising bans is to track the amount tobacco companies spend to promote their products.  The value of tracking is limited when complete information is not available - as is the case in Canada. Although the Tobacco Act requires the companies to divulge records of their advertising expenditures, this information has not been made public (despite applications under Canada's Access to Information Act). 

ACNeilsen tracks advertising expenditures for a number of companies on a commercial basis. They monitor billboards, radio and television advertising and major daily newspapers. The ACNeilsen report on tobacco expenditures was purchased by Health Canada, and the data is thus available to the public. 

ACNeilsen data show that:

• Tobacco industry spending on advertising climbed steadily in the 1990s, and by 1998 returned to the levels before legal restrictions were imposed in 1988. 1998 expenditures were more than 450% higher than those five years earlier.

• Advertising expenditures dropped suddenly in response to the Tobacco Products Control Act (1988), but increased after the passage of its replacement legislation, the Tobacco Act (1997). After the Tobacco Act was amended in 1998 to eventually ban sponsorship, expenditures began to decrease.

• In the year following the Supreme Court decision to strike down the Tobacco Products Control Act in 1995, tobacco industry promotions almost doubled.

 Advertising of tobacco sponsored events on television and radio increased dramatically in the mid-nineties and remains significantly higher than at the beginning of the decade.

• In 1972, tobacco companies voluntarily withdrew from advertising their products on radio or television. Yet in 1994, 63% Canadian children aged 10 - 19 who remembered seeing advertisements for tobacco brand sponsorship recalled that they had seen them on television. (Youth Smoking Survey, Health Canada, 1994)

• These media advertising expenditures do not include the presence of tobacco logos during the broadcast of events (i.e. the appearance of the du Maurier logo during the du Maurier Tennis Open).

• Nor do these advertising expenditures include the payment of subsidies to broadcasters for the transmission of sponsored events.