Background: Since their use of traditional marketing media became more difficult to access, tobacco companies have used packaging to communicate with their audiences. Colours, logos and other graphics convey psychological attributes that smokers access through using particular cigarette brands. In effect, packaging has become a surrogate advertising medium. To counter the subversion of regulations prohibiting tobacco promotion, researchers have called for plain packaging; this would eliminate the use of branding to promote the visibility and appeal of cigarettes. Method: This research replicates earlier studies that examined how packaging communicates a brand's “personality” to potential end-users. It uses brands not currently available in New Zealand as stimuli to explore young adults' impressions of brand users; this enables an assessment of the extent to which packaging communicates with different target groups. The research extends earlier work by exploring whether the effectiveness of warning labels varies according to the level of branding present on packages. Three types of packages: an existing youth brand (Holiday), an international youth brand (Kool) and a plain pack, are used as vehicles for an existing text warning and pictorial warning labels. Young adult smokers will evaluate the impact of the warnings and estimate their likely response to these. Results: The results provide an opportunity to re-examine how packaging communicates brand attributes, given further restrictions on promotion media. Conclusions: The study enables conclusions about the interaction between packaging and warning label effectiveness to be estimated. Implications: The estimates will provide policy guidance relating to regulation of tobacco branding.