By Samantha Hayes
An Otago University study has found that YouTube is riddled with tobacco branding and imagery despite a ban on tobacco advertising in 168 countries.
The anti-smoking group Ash believes it is being done deliberately by the tobacco industry, but Marlboro says it has repeatedly asked YouTube to take the clips down.
Nostalgic clips like this ones of the Marlboro cowboy have been viewed almost a quarter of a million times on YouTube, and researchers found tens of thousands of videos starring cigarettes.
"There was a lot of stuff from movies, a lot of stuff around celebrities, Paris Hilton and so on, a lot of stuff related to sports," says George Thompson.
He says this extensive, unregulated advertising normalises smoking, and feels certain the industry is behind at least some of it.
"The internet is just so much harder than other media," he says. "It's a real Wild West - there's no rules, and there's no real control except places like China."
Ash says brands like Marlboro have been searching for loopholes since print and broadcast advertising was banned 10 years ago.
"The internet and social media is used by youth, and also there's no age restriction on it, so in terms of getting around marketing laws it's very useful for what they're doing," says spokesperson Michael Colhoun.
But Philip Morris International, which owns Marlboro, told 3 News they neither promote nor condone their products on YouTube.
"[We have] previously asked YouTube to remove content related to our brands and will be contacting YouTube again following this study," the company says.
The researchers say their findings may only be the tip of the iceberg because they only looked at five brands and clips in English.
YouTube is also only one part of online social media, and a quick search even picks up fan pages for cigarettes on Facebook.
3 News