SEE: Smoking ads – from glamour to gross

Since the '60s, smoking has been glamourised by marketers - from portraying men who smoked as strong to showing doctors who recommended a specific cigarette brand. 

Many large sporting events, such as Wimbledon, were sponsored by tobacco companies, and billboards and magazines were flooded with smoking campaigns. But, in the early '90s the tobacco advertising industry came under siege.

In 1993, the South African government passed the Tobacco Products control Act in 1993 that banned:

• Advertising and sponsorship
• Smoking in public spaces and work places except under specific conditions

In 2018, we are set to see even stricter legislation against smoking, according to Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi. 

These include: 

• Repackaging of cigarettes - legislation may enforce plain packaging and graphic images where boxes only display the brand name, warning labels and gory pictures displaying the possibly harmful effects of using tobacco products.
• Cigarette vending machines to be abolished. 
• Dr Motsoaledi wants to ban the 25% space in public spaces.  

We're witnessing more anti-smoking ad campaigns warning smokers and non-smokers of the implications tobacco products have on their health. 

Have a look at what advertising was allowed before the clampdown in more recent years: 

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