How Tobacco and Alcohol Companies Talk to Men Via Ads in GQ Magazine

“Making history is hard work.” Making a good advertisement is also hard work. For decades, tobacco and alcohol companies have ceaselessly sought new ways to encourage men to purchase their product via advertising, though the increasing number of policies have applied to their advertisement. This study is to examine how do tobacco and alcohol companies talk to men through the ads in GQ magazine. A total number of 14 GQ magazines from August 2017 to October 2018 were covered in the study. The researcher used a qualitative research method – inductive analysis to conduct this study, he reviewed every tobacco and alcohol ad in these magazines, and all the duplicated and extremely similar ads were deleted. Through this study, we could have a stronger knowledge on how these companies positioned their products to men, what kinds of message strategies have been used in their ads, and how the concept of masculinity used in addressing male readers.