Marlboro Cigarettes
Philip Morris's Marlboro Cigarettes had a checkered history, as the facts listed below will show. From a ladies; cigarette it was transformed into it male macho image only as late as 1955 when the company released the "Tattooed Man" campaign showing that Marlboro cigarettes were for men. As early as 1847 Philip Morris opened and sold small amounts of hand rolled Turkish Cigarettes. In 1902 Philip Morris established a New York based corporation for selling cigarettes. Twenty-two years later, in 1924, Philip Morris remarketed Marlboro Cigarettes as a women’s cigarette. The filters on some Marlboro cigarettes were red to cover lipstick smears. The female audience was targeted showing feminine hands reaching for a Marlboro in 1926. This marketing strategy caught fire, but the economy was in a slump, and by the Second World War, Marlboro Cigarettes had lost much of its profit margin and market share. To the dismay of many women, Marlboro Cigarettes did not last through the Second World War. In 1942 Reader’s Digest published an article named "Cigarette Advertising Fact and Fiction." The aim of this article was to dismiss cigarette quality as a concept, and to display cigarettes as deadly. Marlboro Cigarettes marketers at Philip Morris saw an open door. Marlboro Cigarettes was reintroduced as the safer cigarette brand. In 1954 Marlboro Cigarettes had less than one per cent of the cigarette market. Marlboro Cigarettes had to figure out a way to acquire a new customer base: older male. In 1955 Marlboro Cigarettes was reborn again, this time with the idea of masculinity. The "Tattooed Man" campaign showed that Marlboro cigarettes were for men. This new rugged image depicted Marlboro smokers as a lean, healthy, avid outdoorsman. In 1955 Marlboro Cigarettes was re-released in New York, and within a year sales were up 50 fold, Marlboro Cigarettes was back thanks to the Marlboro Man. Studies found that the cowboy Marlboro Man appeared to be more popular than any other Marlboro Man image. Over time this same Marlboro Man has been used to equate his image with quality and the quality of other items in Marlboro Cigarettes campaigns. Today, the Marlboro brand Cigarettes continues to flourish and give smoking pleasure to millions of people around the world