Marketing Lessons From Cigarette Companies

Smoking has fallen out of favour in recent times, and in many countries no longer even allowed to advertise. But it wasn't always that way - once upon a time, cigarette companies were the masters of marketing and if you’re in business - and particularly in marketing - there’s a lot to learn from them. 

As a first point of consideration, cigarettes range from ‘budget’ to ‘premium’, yet most people would say they’re exactly the same thing. 

So you’ve got a multitude of companies all releasing exactly the same product. As a manufacturer, how would you not tear your hair out at that? Perhaps some did. But those that thrived did incredibly well, and in this post we're going to identify just a few of the things that we can learn.

Messaging

“Wherever particular people congregate” - Pall Mall

“Welcome to Flavour Country” - Marlboro

“It’s Toasted” - Lucky Strike

If you’re younger than a certain age or never been a smoker, you may not be aware that cigarette brands utilised different taglines to differentiate themselves. Marlboro’s is the most famous, but take a look at Pall Mall’s. Instantly, it cultivates a sense of exclusivity. To smoke Pall Mall, you were aligning yourself with a certain type of people.

“It’s Toasted” helped to pull Lucky Strike from a slump to amongst the leaders in sales. And it came from a throwaway line that essentially said “the heat used when producing cigarettes basically means we’re cooking them.” This was true of all brands. Notice they don’t say “only ours are toasted.” It’s an example of highlighting something common amongst all brands, but by being the only one to say it, you make the public assume it’s unique to you. 

Pivoting 

In 2018, Marlboro had over 43% of the market - more than the next 10 cigarette brands combined. Famed for its manly adverts of a cowboy in the expansive West, these became the brand of cigarettes, and were almost always the brand you’d see in films with product placement. So successful was that campaign, they were later dubbed “cowboy killers”.

But it wasn’t always that way. It seems inconceivable now, but Marlboro was originally created as a brand for women. They even had a red filter to hide any lipstick stains. But this new brand didn’t get any traction with the intended market.

So, the execs put an orange filter on instead, changed the imagery to a cowboy, and marketed it to men.

The rest, as they say, is history.

“Creative” marketing and getting the result you want from customer research

It’s a line still referred to today. And we see versions of it on modern adverts for such things as toothpaste.

“9 out of 10 doctors smoke Camels!”

Well if you’re a smoker, how do you not decide to smoke the same brand as the people who know health? 

Did 90% of smoking doctors choose Camels?

Nope. This was actually a stroke of genius from the marketing team.

Here’s how they did it:

Researcher 1 stood outside the main door of the medical building, and offered a pack of free Camels to the doctors as they left. The doctors would light one up on their way, and bump into Researcher 2 who was stationed just down the road and seemingly nothing to do with the guy who was giving these cigarettes out.

“Hey, what brand are you smoking there sir?”

“Oh, these are, um, oh, Camels.”

Get it? 9 out of 10 doctors smoke Camels because the Camel team had just given them a free pack. The “research” consisted of asking them what they happened to be smoking at that moment - not what their usual brand was.

And thus, one of the most recognisable and enduring ads of all time was born.

(And now you know to be at least a little bit sceptical when you see brands making the same claim today.)

Here's a short, brilliant clip demonstrating how your messaging, how you present something to people, hugely influences the outcome: