WASHINGTON — Could looking at a color somewhere between brown and green make someone feel so repulsed they would stop smoking?
That’s the hope of British health officials, who are requiring cigarette packaging include the hue, in an effort to reduce smoking in the nation.
It’s been a difficult four years for the color, Pantone 448C, called “Opaque couché.”
In 2012, an Australian research agency surveyed more than 1,000 smokers between the ages of 16 and 64, to find the most undesirable color, in hopes of making cigarette packages as unappealing as possible.
Respondents used words like “filthy,” “tar,” “dirty” and “death,” after viewing the color.
Initially, the color was described as “olive green,” but that didn’t sit well with the Australian olive lobby, according to Smithsonian.com.
Now, the United Kingdom is following Australia’s lead.
The UK will require Pantone 448C be integrated into all cigarette packages manufactured for sale in the country from now on. In addition to the color, only plain fonts will be allowed.
Not everyone agrees with the hideousness.
“At the Pantone Color Institute, we consider all colors equally,” Leatrice Eiseman, executive director, told The Guardian. “We consider all color equally.”
Eiseman sniffs, there is “no such thing as the ugliest color.”
The U.S. may soon be even more aggressive with its cigarette packaging.
In 2009 a law was passed ordering the inclusion of graphic pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs, but a tobacco company convinced an appeals court to delay implementation.
A recent scientific trial contrasted the effects of pictorial or text-only warnings, according to The New York Times.
Smokers who saw photo warnings were more likely to avoid smoking, according to the study, published in the JAMA Internal Medicine.
In a totally nonscientific look at the color’s fall into disfavor, the long-silent Pantone 448C Twitter account groused:
I used to feature so much in all your 70s couches, curtains and wallpapers. What did I do to deserve this?
— Pantone 448 C (@Pantone448C) August 17, 2012
