Marlboro (cigarette)
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Marlboro logo
Marlboro is a brand of cigarette made by Phillip Morris. It is most famous for its Billboard Advertisements of the Marlboro Man, a "tough guy" or macho image, such as a cowboy or a construction worker. It currently is one of the best selling cigarettes in the world.
Phillip Morris, a London-based cigarette manufacturer, created a New York subsidiary in 1902 to sell several of its cigarette brands, including Marlboro. By 1924 they were advertising Marlboro as a woman's cigarette based on the slogan "Mild As May".
The brand was sold in this capacity until World War II when the brand faltered and was temporarily removed from the market. At the end of the war three brands; Camel, Lucky Strike, and Chesterfield surfaced and established a firm hold on the cigarette market.
During the 1950's Reader's Digest magazine published a series of articles that linked smoking with lung cancer. Phillip Morris, and the other cigarette companies took notice and each began to market filtered cigarettes. The new Marlboro with a filtered end was launched in 1955.
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Marlboro is also well known as a sponsor of motor sport teams.
Advertising campaigns
"Mild as May" is the advertising campaign used by Marlboro cigarettes before they added a filtered tip to their product. The product was endorsed by Mae West and marketed towards females.
One of the features of Marlboro cigarettes at the time was a red tip, which hid lipstick marks that women would leave while smoking.
This campaign was dropped in favor of a more masculine Marlboro Man campaign.
Information (http://users.wclynx.com/theshaws/adsmarlboro.html) above taken from James Shaw on 2/17/05.
In the early 1960s Philip Morris invented "Marlboro Country" and distilled their manly imagery into the rugged cowboys known as the "Marlboro Men." Marlboro quickly gained market share and saw their sales increase 5,000 percent within 8 months of the ad campaign's premiere.