Smoking. It’s definitely not good for you, a reason why an even increasing number of people are quitting the habit, thanks to awareness projects such as the Great American Smokeout, an event organized by the American Cancer Society. While some quit, though, others stay passionate smokers. Leaving the (giant) issue of health aside, another reason you should make you think about smoking is – your personal branding. You might think of yourself as a modern-day Don Draper, but we’re not in the world of Mad Men. At least not anymore. So cowboy, is it time to smoke to improve your personal brand – or stay puffing?

Before we go into details, the Great American Smokeout is an event organized every year, on the third Thursday of November with the goal being that smokers plan to quit in advance of this day or exactly on November 19th!

To understand smoking, we have to understand its cultural and industrial significance. Historically, tobacco was the first crop grown for money in North America. It was smoked mostly by men in the form of cigarettes that were sold, for example, to soldiers – at least after the American Civil War. It would take another thirty years for cigarettes to become mass produced and be marketed to women.

Looking ‘Cool’, But Not Healthy

While today we know the health effects of nicotine, a key ingredient of cigarettes, it was only after 1964 that the American Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health released their first report, relating smoking to various diseases, including lung cancer.

Up until that point, smoking a cigarette was romanticized and encouraged since it was legal, very cheap and acceptable to most of the general public. And smoking – whether we like to admit it or not – does look kinda cool, which is why more than 46 percent of American adults smoked at the time.

Smoking was permitted almost everywhere, including restaurants, offices and even airplanes, which gave most Americans permission to indulge their habit without seriously thinking about the consequences the tobacco companies were doing everything and anything to mask. If you’re truly interested in branding and marketing yourself, remember that it was those same tobacco companies that started a whole new movement in marketing in order to make the side-effects of smoking seem minimal.

To Smoke Means to Be Accepted

Having smoking permitted was just part of the problem. An even bigger issue was that the habit was socially acceptable. At the time, most people would not only condone, but also expect you to smoke after a good lunch or in a meeting.

Smoking is a social habit that you at the time – and even today – participate in with your coworkers, partners of clients. As you might have seen in the series Mad Men, cigarettes (however fictionalized), heavy drinking and business went hand-in-hand: They were actually very, very good for your brand!

It’s far less socially acceptable to smoke in most of the situations we mentioned like it was before, but all of us know people that define themselves as nonsmokers but smoke from time to time… While it’s obvious that today smoking isn’t as socially acceptable, what really shows how this habit impacts your personal branding is actually not regular smoking! It’s ‘social’ smoking!

Social Smoking Shows The Impact of Smoking on Personal Branding

We all know them. People that tell you, their family and coworkers that they don’t smoke, but when they go out for drinks, to the club or relax – you see a cigarette in their hand. Asking for a lighter ends up being one of the easiest conversations starters with a lot of people becoming “social smokers”, those who smoke almost entirely in social situations.

Various studies on social smoking show that while we know that smoking is bad, we still accept it in certain (social) situations, especially thanks again to tobacco companies that marketed their products to social smokers far before health authorities researched this new group of cigarette smokers. Social smokers don’t smoke alone because they need ‘acceptance’ from a large group of people, as well as various trends (fashion, movies…) to show them that smoking is ok.

Since we know that you’ve decided to create a powerful personal brand, do you really need acceptance from anyone? You didn’t need acceptance to start your path or decide on other aspects of you personal brand, did you? Will you let the tobacco industry define how your potential clients and public sees you? We don’t think so!

Smoking Is Bad For Business

While smoking was a socially acceptable business practice before, it just doesn’t make any more sense – or dollars. It’s been a stated fact by numerous employers that they screen out certain people they deem unhealthy, such as smokers.

Not just that, but smoking can also slow down the time it takes for you to make a decision in your job. A smoking study conducted in the 1980’s revealed that smokers took significantly longer to make a decision while negotiating with someone! It seems that during the tense moments of negotiations, smokers stalled their decision-making by focusing their attention on the actual smoking process.

While you will probably decide to quit smoking as a bad habit, others probably won’t – and that will be their downfall when they decide to work with you. Why? You’ll be able to read what they are up to based on the body language signals coming from their smoking habit. Smoking gestures will give you close to the smoker’s state of mind – and what they are trying to do.

Oh – And Don’t Forget – It’s Bad For You

I know, I know. You’ve seen all the graphics on cigarette packaging, all the non-smoking ads and statistics. While we won’t go into details, never forget that cigarette smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States, accounting for more than 480,000 deaths a year.

Quit Smoking? +1000 Personal Brand Karma!

Do you want to be one of the 16 million Americans that live with a smoking-related disease, or do you want to have a better life thanks to a better (non-smoking) personal brand? While some might want you to be the Don Draper of business, most will want you to kick the habit in order to be more successful! If you’ve decided to use the Great American Smokeout to quit smoking, congratulations – you’re one more step closer to building a great personal brand instead of a nasty habit!