Advertising is a pretty manipulative business. All kinds of industries use language, images, commercials, etc. to influence our emotions and motivate us to NEED their product or service. While the United States is somewhat strict about inflammatory advertising, especially concerning hot topics (i.e. Tim Tebow's abortion commercial during the Superbowl caused quite a stir), France is much more liberal. First, go to the following site and see what side of the fence you land on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/24/french-oral-sex-anti-smok_n_474909.html
The issue at the heart of this controversey is teenage smoking. In France, 33% of the teens smoke. The anti-smoking agency's motivation behind this is they are trying to extinguish or at least reduce this behavior. General advertising efforts solely commenting on health and dying hasn't elicited the type of reaction anti-smoking agencies would have liked. So this was there behavioral response to that antecedent. From that, there has stemmed many emotionally-driven responses. Obviously, the sexual connotations are driving this debate of whether or not this ad should be pulled. Pretty funny though because all this controversy by the opposition has made this ad tremendously popular and famous within France and obviously around the world as it has made it into a college classroom in the Midwest.
Personally, I think the ad is provocative and thus powerfully effective. This will undoubtedly grab the attention of youth emitting this addictive behavior. Consequently, the message will get across to these individuals, positively reinforcing the ad company's behavior of producing ads such as this one. It's ingenious really as controversial ads always seem to get more attention than they would have if the opposition kept its mouth shut. It's a pretty crazy behavior modification tool within the marketing business really as their extrinsic motivation to gain attention by producing this controversial ad proved to be a stimulus for discussion and smoking awareness (response).
As an aspiring to-be-ex-smoker (this is near the end of my 2nd day without smoking), I think I can answer the questions you asked in your last paragraph. After jumping a head a chapter in the text book to figure out what exactly a quasi-need was, I believe that you hit the nail on the head.
At first, smoking was a very social thing for me. I did it because my mother and my friends smoked. I also found that in the beginning, smoking helped me to form friendships with others (which is a very tough thing for me to do because I am naturally a very shy person). Some of my closest friends today are people who I met 10 years ago on the front stoop of my dorm building and bonded with because we shared a common behavior (heck, we even used to joke around about our smoking group forming a club called "Stoop Sigma Pi"-yes, we were nerds like that. So for me, smoking helped me to fulfill my psychological need for relatedness.
After a while, I noticed I had an urge to smoke more whenever I felt really stressed. Of course, at that point, smoking became associated as a stress-reducer (as you pointed out, it became a quasi-need).
At what point does it turn physiological? I have no idea. However, I can tell you with the uttermost certainty that it is physiological. In just two days, my body has begun the process of nicotine withdrawal. Not only am I more irritable but I definitely feel very anxious. Last night, I could hardly sleep because I felt restless (seriously, I felt like I drank 10 energy drinks right before I went to bed and I was wide awake). I tossed and turned all night and my heart was racing. Today, I've had a headache all day (on top of being groggy from last night)and the urge to smoke is more powerful than it was yesterday. However, I am sticking to my guns and refraining from giving into the urge. I have been wearing a nicotine patch, but it only reduces the withdrawal symptoms slightly. My body is used to the instant gratification that the cigarette provided when I inhaled a larger quantity of nicotine at one time rather than a slow constant dosage of nicotine being released all day long.