Marlboro

History

In 1847, the family of British tobacconist Philip Morris opened a shop on Bond Street, London, selling tobacco and rolled cigarettes. After Philip's death in 1873, his brother Leopold and widow Margaret continued the business, growing it and opening a factory on Great Marlborough Street, London, from which the name was taken.

A New York subsidiary was opened in 1902 to sell many of its cigarette brands. The name '"Marlboro"' was registered in the US in 1908 although no cigarette was marketed under this name until 1923. In 1924, the brand was launched. They were first marketed as "America's luxury cigarette" and were mainly sold in hotels and resorts.

Around the 1930s, it was starting to be advertised as a women's cigarette, based on the slogan "Mild As May".

However, as early as 1885, a brand called "Marlborough" was already being marketed as a "ladies' favorite" by Philip Morris & Co.

Shortly before World War II, the brand's sales stagnated at less than 1% of tobacco sales in the US and was briefly withdrawn from the market. After the war, Camel, Lucky Strike and Chesterfield were the only common cigarettes.

After scientists published a major study linking smoking to lung cancer in the 1950s, Philip Morris repositioned Marlboro as a men's cigarette in order to fit a market niche of men who were concerned about lung cancer while also concerned with masculinity if they smoked a filtered cigarette usually marketed to women. The Leo Burnett advertising agency solved the problem by a new style of advertising that dispensed with copy and created a visual personality for the brand. Marlboro ads now featured masculinity. The Marlboro Man was a sea captain, gunsmith, athlete and cowboy.

Part of Marlboro's rise in market share was its ability to produce "milder, more aromatic, sweeter, and less harsh" cigarettes by adding ammonia to the tobacco. Further usage of diammonium phosphate allowed Marlboro to free base the nicotine in tobacco, allowing for more efficient delivery. Marlboro kept this process secret for many years, as freebasing is the same process used to produce crack cocaine from normal cocaine. Some experts have called the product that Marlboro sold "crack tobacco."

Advertising

In the 1920s, advertising for the cigarette was primarily based on how ladylike the filter cigarette was, in an attempt to appeal to the mass market. To this end, the filter had a printed red band around it to hide lipstick stains, calling it "Beauty Tips to Keep the Paper from Your Lips".

The red and white package was designed by designer Frank Gianninoto. The repositioning of Marlboro as a men's cigarette was handled by Chicago advertiser Leo Burnett. The proposed campaign was to present a lineup of manly figures: sea captains, weightlifters, war correspondents, construction workers, etc. The cowboy was to have been the first in this series. While Philip Morris was concerned about the campaign, they eventually gave the green light.

Marlboro's market share rose from less than one percent to the fourth best-selling brand. This convinced Philip Morris to drop the lineup of manly figures and stick with the cowboy, later known as the Marlboro Man. From 1963, the television advertisements used Elmer Bernstein's theme from The Magnificent Seven.

Over the years, Philip Morris has made many billboard, poster and magazine adverts.

Philip Morris also made various sports-related billboards, stickers and other memorabilia throughout the years, mainly promoting the Marlboro brand via its McLaren and Ferrari teams partnerships in places like Russia and Monaco.

Through licensees, Philip Morris sells various merchandising products, such as lighters, ashtrays, sunglasses and other accessories, which are sometimes given away to the target group as part of marketing promotions.

In 1983, the campaign "Marlboro Adventure Team" was launched in Germany, in which purchasers of the brand could apply to win a trip to the USA to live like the "Marlboro Man", as well as a plethora of different clothing items and accessories.

Post-Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement

In the aftermath of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, Marlboro, then the leading cigarette brand in the United States, was greatly restricted in its capacity to advertise its product offerings. Philip Morris thus shifted primarily to 'point of sale' and mail advertising. By 2005, Marlboro had exclusive contracts with almost half of the country's retailers to display and advertise its premium offerings in prominent locations.

By 2000, the company had adopted the Marlboro Miles rewards catalog as a means of incentivizing consumer loyalty. In 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an earlier court judgement which had found that the proof-of-purchase system it utilized was by definition a 'gift certificate' program. This secondary judgement allowed Philip Morris to revoke the validity of 'Five Miles' products after a certain date.

Sport sponsorship

According to Ellen Merlo, vice president of marketing services at Philip Morris, quoted in a 1989 Marlboro advertisement:We perceive Formula One and Indy car racing as adding, if you will, a modern-day dimension to the Marlboro Man. The image of Marlboro is very rugged, individualistic, heroic. And so is this style of auto racing. From an image standpoint, the fit is good.

Marlboro is known for its association with motor racing. This started in the 1972 season with the sponsorship of the Formula One team BRM. The first win for a Marlboro-sponsored Formula One car was achieved at the 1972 Monaco Grand Prix by Jean-Pierre Beltoise driving for the BRM team. In 1973 and 1974, the cigarette giant backed the Frank Williams Racing Cars team, whose cars were registered as Iso-Marlboro.

In the 1974 season, under the leadership of advertising executive and eventual Formula One power broker John Hogan, Marlboro became associated with the McLaren team. The team won their first World Constructors' Championship as well as first World Drivers' Championship (for Emerson Fittipaldi) in the first season of the partnership between McLaren and Marlboro. The team won another drivers title in 1976 for James Hunt. Following that, the partnership went through a dry patch until Ron Dennis's Project Four Organization took over the team in 1981. Marlboro-sponsored McLaren triumphed Formula One for much of the 1980s and early 1990s, with Niki Lauda, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna between them winning the Drivers' Championship all but one year from 1984 to 1991. After the departure of Ayrton Senna at the end of the 1993 season, Marlboro McLaren never won a race again. Marlboro ended their sponsorship of the team at the end of the 1996 season, which ended the red and white McLaren livery. McLaren was sponsored by West from the start of the 1997 season onwards. McLaren and Marlboro had the longest sponsorship deal between a team and its title sponsor in Formula One history, which lasted for 23 consecutive seasons (1974–1996).

Over the years, McLaren altered the Marlboro livery to comply with regional anti-tobacco sponsorship laws which were in place in countries like France, the UK and later Germany. The Marlboro logo was replaced by a chevron in 1974, with a barcode in 1984 and 1985 and from 1987 to 1992 or with "McLaren" in 1986 and from 1991 to 1993 and 1994 to 1996. At the 1986 Portuguese Grand Prix, Keke Rosberg's car was painted yellow and white rather than red and white, to advertise Marlboro Lights.

Products

Phillip Morris markets cigarettes, snus, and HeatSticks under the Marlboro brand.

International cigarette varieties

Philip Morris International organized Marlboro products into three divisions—Flavor line, which are original red full flavor cigarettes, Gold line are former lights, and Fresh line comprises flavored cigarettes.

In the UK, the company sells Marlboro Red, Gold, Touch and Silver King Size. In May 2020, all brands of menthol cigarettes, including Marlboro Menthol and Marlboro Ice Blast Capsule cigarettes were banned in the European Union.

In the Philippines, Marlboro has five cigarette variants: Marlboro Classic (also known as Marlboro Red), Marlboro Gold (first known and well-known as Marlboro Lights), Marlboro Black Menthol (simply Marlboro Black), Marlboro Purple Fusion (or Purple Mix) and Marlboro Ice Blast Mega (known as Marlboro Blue, a companion brand of Fortune Mint Splash in the Philippines).

Marlboro in Canada

Philip Morris sold the Canadian rights to the "Marlboro" name to Imperial Tobacco Canada in 1932. After the brand's successful American relaunch in the 1950s, Philip Morris tried several legal manoeuvres in attempting to reacquire the Canadian rights. Imperial Tobacco continued to sell a line of cigarettes under the Marlboro name in Canada, albeit with different packaging from that of the Philip Morris product. Philip Morris retains the rights to the "rooftop" trade dress and other elements of Marlboro's branding which were developed after the 1932 sale and has used that trade dress in Canada in combination with the names "Matador" or occasionally "Maverick" for a line of Virginia blend cigarettes.

In 2006, Philip Morris International's Canadian affiliate Rothmans, Benson & Hedges introduced a new product with the "rooftop" trade dress, and marked as being the "World Famous Imported Blend", but not bearing any actual brand name. This led to a legal challenge from Imperial, contending that the new packaging created customer confusion by merely suggesting the Marlboro brand, thereby infringing on Imperial's Canadian trademark rights. Canada's Federal Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Imperial in June 2012. The judgment noted that Canadian regulations which (in most cases) prohibit the public display of tobacco products at retail locations – i.e., customers must ask for a brand by name – exacerbated the situation, as there were now two products that customers might be referring to when asking for "Marlboro". Though PMI attempted to appeal the decision, shortly after the ruling it began using the brand name "Rooftop" on packaging for the previously unbranded cigarettes. The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear PMI's appeal the following year.

Morley

"Morley" is a fictional brand of cigarettes whose packaging resembles Marlboro's original packaging. The fictional brand has appeared in various television shows, films, and video games that otherwise have no apparent connection to each other. The name "Morley" is a play on "Marleys", a nickname for Marlboro cigarettes. Morleys appear at least as far back as 1960, in Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho. There is also a Morley Lights version, in a gold and white package (similar to Marlboro Lights), marked "Lights".

Morleys were iconically smoked by the Cigarette Smoking Man, a major character of the sci-fi TV series The X-Files. The Morley Cigarettes packet is noted as one of the most recognizable props used throughout the series. The Morley packaging is sold to production companies by the Earl Hays Press, a century-old Hollywood prop packaging service.

Using non-brand name products like Morley cigarettes dates back to early American television. Cigarette companies often sponsored entire TV shows and advertised through product placement, but if no cigarette companies agreed to pay, producers instead used a non-brand product.