Although marketing theory and some researchers13 23 suggest that adverts should be targeted towards specific audiences, there was no effect of target audi- ence in this study. That is, adverts that were aimed at youth were not appraised or engaged in different ways from those aimed at a more general audience. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the four advertisements that received the highest advert impact scores (see table 4) were all targeted at a general audience and included vivid portrayals of the negative health consequences of smoking (or secondhand smoke).