January 21, 2024 • 25 mins
We smoke out the rough and rugged legacy of the iconic Marlboro Man marketing campaign that rode the trails of pop culture for over 40 years leaving many blackened lungs behind.
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #Television #Smoking #Marlboro #Ads #MarlboroMan
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #Television #Smoking #Marlboro #Ads #MarlboroMan
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Speaking Human Today. On Speaking Human, we smoke out the rough and rugged
legacy of the iconic Marlborough Man marketingcampaign that rode the trails of pop culture
for over forty years, leaving manyblackened lungs behind. Specking Human. Welcome
(00:31):
to Speaking Human, where we simplifythe world of marketing for humans. I'm
Shad Comly and with me is myco host Patrick Jever. What, sir,
Patrick, how many cowboy killers wouldyou say you typically smoke while we're
recording an episode of the Pod fivesix ten. It's really not that much.
It's two. You've cut back cartons. Two cartons. Yeah, I
(00:56):
know if you meant when I saycowboy killers, I knew exactly what you
meant. Okay. Other terms arelike nails, squares, smokes, darts.
I've never heard any of those terms. How do you know those?
I don't. Okay, I jokebecause I know Patrick is not really smoking
cigarettes. But you can't see us, so you don't know. We've talked
(01:17):
about this a lot, but therewas a time when everybody was smoking everywhere.
I find that. As far backas that seems, it's still like
one of those things where time iscoming back, like you know, history
is repeating itself. Smoking and TVshows and movies is starting to become prevalent
again. Well, taking us backto the days of smoking, which you
(01:38):
know we're going to hit on alittle bit today on this episode. By
a little bit, I mean alot. I have a few cigarette trivia
questions for you, Patrick. Areyou ready to do some cigarette trivia?
I am a favorite your favorite trivia, my favorite kind of trivia. Yeah,
all right, let's see if wecan roll through these. First one,
(02:00):
start you off with a whammie.Can you name five brands of cigarettes
Marlborough? We are talking about Marlboroughtoday, Newports, got it, Camels
three, I know, I knowa bunch of other ones. I swear
if I see that the name,I will be like, oh, of
course, Menthol's. Is that abrand. I don't think that's a brand.
(02:23):
I think that's type you know.Yeah, but there's a type of
cigarette that's I think more associated withMenthol, not Hots. Yeah. Yeahs,
So that I'm missing one. Marlborough's, Camels, Newports, there's like
an obvious one. There was likea really big brand, and I cannot
think of the big brand because Ithink Marlborough and Camels were the two biggest
(02:46):
probably of the time. I think, So what did I miss? What
were some of the other ones?A couple I would think about the top
of my head. Parliament's hm hm. Another one that I would think of
just because it's so you Nick VirginiaSlims. Yeah, Slims, that's how
I Paul Mall, Yeah, PaulMall Okay, Winston's Winston might be ones
(03:12):
you might, you know, mightthink of it. And then there's you
know, there's some other brands inthere that I don't know are super familiar
to me, but those are kindof some of the big ones. So
I think you hit some of thebig ones. But it's hard. I
got four. That's not bad,it did. You got real close,
all right, So give you someI won't say they're easier questions, but
they're you're either going to know themor you're gonna not. This one,
you probably won't. What cigarette brandintroduced the first widely successful filtered cigarette,
(03:38):
revolutionizing the smoking industry in the nineteenfifties. I'd say it's Marlborough. It's
actually not, it's Winston Winston,Okay, Winston Filters. In what year
was cigarette advertising on TV and radioband seventy six, You're close seventy one?
(03:59):
Okay one. As a result,as a result of the Public Health
Cigarettes Smoking Act in the nineteen nineties, what brand of cigarettes faced significant controversy
and legal challenges for its marketing tactics, which were criticized for targeting a youthful
audience through the use of animated charactersin bright colors. Oh, I'd say
(04:20):
that's Cammel for sure. It's definitelyCammel. We all remember Joe. It's
a cool cat. The kids lovedhim. I thought he was cool.
In twenty twenty one, how manyout of every one hundred US adults aged
eighteen years or older smoked cigarettes?What year? Twenty twenty one? Oh,
(04:42):
twenty twenty one. Yeah, thisjust recently. Out of one hundred,
I'd say nineteen. It's a littlelower. It's twelve. Oh,
that was gonna be my first guess, was it. Yeah, I was
gonna say twelve, and I'm like, that's too low. It's got to
be up hired. Well, that'sgood for America. Yeah. An estimated
twenty eight point three million adults inthe United States currently smoke. Last question,
(05:10):
what has been the best selling internationalcigarette brand since nineteen seventy two,
owning a forty percent share of theUS cigarette market in twenty seventeen. I'm
gonna go with my answer. That'sbeen the entire episode so far. Marlborough.
This time it's going to be correct. Yeah, it is Marlboro forty
(05:31):
I know. If I just answeredthat, I mean, I throw it
out enough eventually statistically hit Yeah.Forty percent. Yeah, forty percent share
of the US cigarette Market's believe.So, either depending where you sit,
either a huge success story or ayou know, massive failure to humanity.
Well, you know, Philip Morris, they you know, they got us
(05:51):
addicted. They've done some things,They've done some things. You know.
That's a good kind of segue in. Let's talk about the Marlboro Man campaign.
Why was this such a big success? I want to tell us a
little bit about the Marlboro Man,Patrick, do I Ever? So,
the Marlborough Man marketing campaign, launchedin nineteen fifty four, lasted all the
(06:15):
way up until nineteen ninety nine.The Marlboro Man, if you don't remember,
was portrayed by a cowboy figure,and he was the face of Marlborough
Cigarettes for all that time. Thewhole idea behind the Marlboro Man was they
wanted to associate smoking, you know, the idea of smoking a cigarette with
the rugged, independent spirit of theAmerican West, and the campaign aimed to
(06:41):
rebrand Marlborough from a filtered cigarette targetedat women to a symbol of masculinity.
The campaign proved to be highly successful, obviously, based on that quiz question
that you asked me, right,forty percent of the US market, turning
Marlborough into one of the most recognizableand best selling cigarette brands in the world.
It's worth noting that the campaign itselfwas something that changed the world,
(07:05):
but for better or worse, mainlyfor worse in this case. But you
know, I can't really talk aboutmarketing advertising history without talking about this campaign
to some extent. I mean,it's one of the most effective of all
time. Again for better or forworse. I'll tell you what. Doing
the research for this episode, whenI was looking through some of these ads,
(07:28):
my reaction was, Wow, thisbrand really they really seem like they
have no interest in women. Youknow, initially, until I found out
that background that they already had womencornered. They were actually trying to pivot
to get men on board when youknow that background. I think that that
adds a little context to it.So, you know, before we kind
of dive more into the Marlboro man, let's kind of address the big question.
(07:50):
I guess the thing some people mightbe thinking about is, you know,
is it okay to talk about amarketing campaign where the impact of that
campaign is, you know, pushinga product that has led to the death
or someone even say killed a massivenumber of people. What are your thoughts
on that? What do you sayto that, Patrick, I think you
(08:11):
could do that pretty much with anythingin this world, you know, even
if it does have a negative impact, because it teaches you something about the
way that we consume marketing and itseffect on us. And also it can
teach you how to maybe not havehistory repeat itself, you know, how
to overcome those effects when it comesto something that is marketing, something that's
(08:33):
harmful towards you. So to talkabout it, it's good. Yeah.
No, I think that was wellsaid. I think you know, we're
on the same page. I thinkit's important to talk about these things.
I think it's valuable for people tothink at a deeper level about what you're
being sold. And how things arebeing sold to you. And I think
it's valuable for marketers to think aboutthat too, Like, what's our role
(08:54):
in this? How are we complicitin, you know, the products that
are being sold to people. Whensomething we do is successful, does that
automatically mean it's a positive? Youknow? What does that mean for the
marketer and the company? That shouldbe weighing on everybody's mind. So I
think it's important to keep these thingsin the forefront and not just try to
bury them in the past like theydidn't happen looking back, you know,
(09:16):
looking at some of these advertisements,looking at this campaign, this idea,
this this hyper masculine you know,cowboy idea. Why was this such a
big success? We talk about itin the intro, like when we talk
about the Marlborough Man campaign itself.You know, this idea of you know,
drawing on the male ego or youknow, the male's desired to be
(09:41):
masculine, you know, the maledrive to be so manly, trying to
harness that in a campaign, likea marketing campaign and say everything about this
product will make you like that.I don't know of any other product.
I can't think of it the otherproduct, off the top of my head
(10:01):
that ever tried to be that fora whole gender gender. Yeah, you
know, yeah, it almost playsyou know, you look at it now,
it's almost like a parody of itself. But you know, at the
time, obviously this is when thiscame out. This is like in John
(10:22):
Wayne's America. This is kind ofpeak cowboy. And what they were selling
you they weren't you know, theywere not selling you the product at all.
They were selling you this attitude,right, Yeah, you could adopt
this attitude and it was it waslike ultimate madness, and it worked.
I don't know how many of theseI looked at, not a lot of
(10:46):
there's variation, but within a smallbox yeah right, yeah, I mean
they knew what they were doing,and they just hit it over and over
and over again because they had it. Yeah, they had it and it
was working. Yeah, were like, here's my money, yeah, here's
my here's my health, here's myYeah. But they they didn't know,
(11:09):
they didn't know that at the time. It's the ideal, right, it's
the idea that they were selling youand you were buying it. That's a
tough thing to do. I mean, that's why I say like, I
can't think of really any other productsthat do that to that degree. We
were consuming something that is not goodfor us. I know there's products everywhere
like this. I mean, youknow, we're still eating junk food,
(11:30):
we're still eating sugar. We're talkingabout cancer, right, like this idea
like lung cancer. Ah. Youknow, yeah, a lot of people
who bought into that idea that we'retalking about. We're buying into this idea,
and all they really needed to dowas buy into it for a temporary
amount of time because then they're addicted. Right, So it's a it's a
(11:52):
unique product in that way, andthat's you know, that's kind of the
beauty of marketing is like if youdo it, and you do it just
right, you can hit you canhit that nerve or you can hit that
you know, that sweet spot ofwhat a person desires, right, And
in this case, it's really focusedon whole gender, which is what's so
strange about it. It's like whatdo men want? Obviously, at the
(12:16):
time this came out, the Westernruled Supreme and stuff. We've seen that
kind of like die off, orwe've had like revisionist Westerns like Unforgiven and
stuff. Come out. But evennow, I think, you know,
this idea of like the cowboy freeon the range. You know, there's
something in the brain, or atleast in the male brain that is like
triggered or turned on by like cowboyimagery that this campaign just like really tapped
(12:43):
into. So let's talk about someof the ads we picked out kind of
a few to just talk about someof the variation or what kind of we're
seeing that is going on there.Do you want to talk about some of
the ones that kind of popped outto you? Again, I you know,
when I'm looking at a lot ofthese, I was impressed by while
they worked within this box they created, you know, I know, like
in the later years they kind ofworked with like some stock car racers and
(13:07):
stuff like that and did some kindof different things. But I think for
the most part, what I foundwas fairly you know, on message for
most of the way through. Andwe're talking decades. Yeah, cowboys on
horses, lassos a lot of timessmoking the cigarette, but sometimes you didn't
even see the cigarette. Sometimes justalluded to the feeling, yeah, and
(13:30):
and really capturing like that raw youknow, the raw emotion in imagery of
a cowboy in actions. That's whereit happened. I mean, there was
some early you know ads with likeclose ups of cowboys, but then it
really kind of morphed and evolved intothis a cowboy with a lasso riding a
(13:52):
horse, dirt coming up behind him, looks like he is wrangling a steer
or something, you know, cometo Marlborough Country. I picked a couple.
One is a spread in a magazineof that same imagery usually has a
red shirt on white jacket in somecases. And then there's another one where
it's just a one page spread ofhim sort of riding this horse up this
(14:15):
like hillside, trying to climb thissort of like peak. It looks like
same thing, Come to Marlborough Country. And the reason why I picked these
two in my mind was because Ifeel like any one of these ads I
remember them, they are so burnedinto my brain. That's how true,
like you said, it is,to the message and consistency of that message.
(14:39):
So I picked these too. Andmainly, you know, they were
you could tell they were in tradepublications or something. You know, it
could have been a magazine of whoknows what it was, but they were
in everything, you know, theywere everywhere. So I do feel like,
you know, they as we talkedabout cigarette brands lost the ability to
(15:00):
advertise on TV and radio and said, okay, let's take all that money
and make sure we are advertising inevery magazine that is published anywhere at any
time. Yeah, because I feellike all of these ads, like you
said, whether I actually saw themor not, I feel like every magazine
I saw when I was in adoctor's office as a kid, on the
(15:22):
back page was a cigarette ad.M H. I don't know if that's
true or not, but that's inmy mind. That's that's what I remember.
Yeah, every every magazine everywhere youwent. And I mean, you
know, we say magazines because forthose who are listening who might be a
little younger, magazines. What aremagazines right or what? I guess,
(15:48):
when's the last time you saw magazinebut a thing? Yeah. When we
were young, I mean everything wascentered around magazines, like magazines were the
Internet. Yeah, they were yourperiodical. I mean it was that was
how you got some information. Yeah, it was timely. It wasn't a
book, so you know, everythingwas sort of riding on those magazines.
(16:11):
And I mean you see that,you see that because most of these are
advertisements in magazines. Yeah, andone of the ones I picked out was,
you know, not nothing super atypical. In many ways, it's very
typical, and that's why I pickedit out. I think it was just
(16:32):
the cowboy in particular in this one, and the you know, scal in
his face. But he has allalmost all the features you described to a
t. He's got the white hat, he's got the red shirt, he's
wearing a leather vest. He's standingin a bar, and he's got one
arm out, he's got the otherhand reaching in his pocket for a match.
He's got a nice, very strongmustache like Tom Selick style. He's
(16:56):
got the cigarette dangling from his mouth. Looks like he's getting ready for something
because on his arm, he's gota rope in his hand. He's clutching
like a leather cloth. So Idon't know what he's going out there to
do. You know, he's surroundedby wood, very rustic scenario. I
don't know, he's going out thereto do some hard work. But before
(17:18):
he does, he's picking up aquick smoke, or maybe he's gonna smoke
while he works, you know,And then you get that, you know,
superimposed over the top. You getthat that tagline that they just forever.
This is all they did. Theydidn't they didn't mess with a lot
a lot more other stuff. Theyjust put it on there. Come to
where the flavor is, which isa call both to the cigarette, you
know, and both a call tothis kind of come to this attitude,
(17:41):
you know, give yourself some flavor, become this type of man. Yeah,
that's really the interesting thing. Youknow, you said they don't they
don't veer too much. Right.It's one of these two sort of major
iconic images of the Marlborough man.He's a close up shot smoking a cigarette
(18:02):
or getting ready to smoke or lightingup, or he's with his horse,
and it's sort of those two things. It's one of the two, and
the one is like a close upshot when they needed to do those.
The other is this like this isthis is the environment that a cowboy is
in, right, This is histrusty sidekick. This is how you get
(18:22):
the work done right, and itgives you. They'll show you the you
know, the variation they worked withis let's send this one. Let's show
him more of the vista, right, Let's show him like the mountains,
the snowcapped mountains, or you know, it's like a dusty, dusty horse
ranch we're working in. Let's givehim more of that, show him like
(18:44):
the freedom of open spaces, orin some cases it's you know, an
extreme close up. I could thinkone that I thought was pretty pretty good
was just a match lighting on aboot mm hmm, yeah, which is
just you know, it doesn't showyou that much, but it tells you
everything about this type of guy andabout what's you know, you know,
exactly what's happening. It kind ofjust strikes a real feeling there. But
(19:07):
still again, playing in the samebox. We've just we're close up or
we're zoomed out, but we're notreally going anywhere else. Yeah, because
it worked, right, it wasworking, and why mess with the formula,
you know? So I will shareone other thing that kind of I
found that tweaked the formula. Thiswas a nineteen sixty eight commercial before they
(19:33):
were banned. Now, this onemore directly kind of ties into the time
and more directly associates with kind ofthe urban dwellers. In the beginning,
Oh, he starts off, You'rein a plane, a modern machine with
a lady, even a lady,can you believe it? Even though we're
smoking, we're still in this inthis plane. And before we get to
(19:53):
the cowboys and we start off,you know, you have this this almost
booming orchestrated and bench your type musicwhile you get this almost Doctor Seuss like
narrator reading this copy over top thatreads, Marlborough Country is everywhere anywhere in
the land, from east to west, north to south, from the Lakes
(20:14):
to the Rio Grande, from ManhattanTowers to Towering Pines. The Marlboro legend
grew till today. It's the brandthat won the West and the rest of
the country too. But then theytake you, you know, you go
from this plane and this this manand this woman too. Of course you
end up in Marlborough Country, youknow, back in the open v S
(20:36):
day. You're back with the cowboys. So it kind of it starts you
off and you're like, oh amI getting something different? Here are we
are? We veering a little bit, And then of course they they take
you back where you belong, youknow, out with the Marlboro Man.
Yeah, and Cindy lou who it'sa very very you know, flow free,
(20:59):
flowing poetic. Yeah, when youread it like that, I do
hear the doctor Seuss. Yeah.Yeah, we fell for it. We
fell for it. When you thinkabout it too, like that's nineteen sixty
eight. Yeah, that's four yearsbefore it's banned, right, wow,
(21:22):
seventy one so three years yeah years, yep. So I wonder, you
know if that was sort of thetail end anyway they knew maybe they knew
it was coming. I just think, you know, that time period,
there was like obviously a lot ofchange going on in the country. They
probably felt this, here's this pulltowards you know, this modern world.
(21:42):
I still remember you could pay forand get, you know, the range
jacket from Marlborough, cut it outand you would mail it in and you
would get the h Then they hadthe Marlborough like club, you know in
the magazines where you could like getpoints and then you could get gear gear.
(22:03):
Huh were you in the club?Did you have the jacket? I
didn't have a jacket. No.I just remember those things and thinking they
were cool, even though I lookback and go, thank god, I
could never get any of that stuff. I would not want pictures of me
with the Marbro, aren't you glad. I mean, this is like one
(22:23):
of those things where you're like,man, I'm glad some of these things.
I'm like, ah, it's soawesome. I wish I was a
part of that. You're just like, I'm really glad I didn't do that.
Yeah. Another kind of thing ofnotes. I never saw this,
but the nineteen ninety one movie,Yeah, Harley Davidson and the Marble Man.
This was an actual name of amovie. Oh yeah, that came
(22:45):
out Mickey ur and Don Johnson.Yeah, two brands in the title of
an actual movie, two like ingrainedbrands, and it wasn't a parody movie.
It was real. They were playingguys who fit those those mold of
that kind of like iconic characters,right, and two guys who sort of
embodied that. I think at thattime it's probably a brand's dream come true
(23:06):
when somebody's like, hey, youryour brand is in this movie title.
Do you know anything else like that? I mean I can't think of any
other brand. I mean the Legomovie. Yeah, there's no there's no
like mascot right case there is.We just yeah, maybe we just don't
know about it better or worse.The Marlboro Man part of our culture,
part of our history, part ofdefinitely part of marketing history. Yeah,
(23:30):
they tapped into the male aspiration ofcowboy and being wild, you know,
and regardless of how time, howmuch time is span like you said,
even today, there is still thatalmost like longing for something that is an
era that's gone. Right, it'sit's not really like that anymore, if
(23:52):
it ever even was, if thatever, if that thing, this myth
ever even existed, Yeah, whichyou know, I think people would probably
argue that it did, but itwasn't in our lifetime, not to this
degree. It wasn't probably as coolas they make it seem, probably not
last You're like, wonder those wanderingcowboys, we just do that wandering.
(24:17):
I'm so free to live. However, I won't. Can I bump a
cigarette off you? So let usknow what you think of smoking or the
Marlboro Man campaign, probably more specificallythe Marlboro Man campaign, because that's what
we talked about today. But ifyou do want to give us your opinions
on something, that's fine. Youknow, smoking is a really you like
(24:37):
messages from Joe Cammell. Yeah,it's just you just get the Surgeon General's
warning right Smoking by pregnant women mayresult in fetal injury, premature birth,
and low birth weight. Did yousay injury, injury, in injury,
(24:59):
injury. Well, that's it fortoday's episode. Everyone. You can find
current and past episodes of the podcaston Speaking human dot com. We'll be
back in tuc
Speaking Human Today. On Speaking Human, we smoke out the rough and rugged
legacy of the iconic Marlborough Man marketingcampaign that rode the trails of pop culture
for over forty years, leaving manyblackened lungs behind. Specking Human. Welcome
(00:31):
to Speaking Human, where we simplifythe world of marketing for humans. I'm
Shad Comly and with me is myco host Patrick Jever. What, sir,
Patrick, how many cowboy killers wouldyou say you typically smoke while we're
recording an episode of the Pod fivesix ten. It's really not that much.
It's two. You've cut back cartons. Two cartons. Yeah, I
(00:56):
know if you meant when I saycowboy killers, I knew exactly what you
meant. Okay. Other terms arelike nails, squares, smokes, darts.
I've never heard any of those terms. How do you know those?
I don't. Okay, I jokebecause I know Patrick is not really smoking
cigarettes. But you can't see us, so you don't know. We've talked
(01:17):
about this a lot, but therewas a time when everybody was smoking everywhere.
I find that. As far backas that seems, it's still like
one of those things where time iscoming back, like you know, history
is repeating itself. Smoking and TVshows and movies is starting to become prevalent
again. Well, taking us backto the days of smoking, which you
(01:38):
know we're going to hit on alittle bit today on this episode. By
a little bit, I mean alot. I have a few cigarette trivia
questions for you, Patrick. Areyou ready to do some cigarette trivia?
I am a favorite your favorite trivia, my favorite kind of trivia. Yeah,
all right, let's see if wecan roll through these. First one,
(02:00):
start you off with a whammie.Can you name five brands of cigarettes
Marlborough? We are talking about Marlboroughtoday, Newports, got it, Camels
three, I know, I knowa bunch of other ones. I swear
if I see that the name,I will be like, oh, of
course, Menthol's. Is that abrand. I don't think that's a brand.
(02:23):
I think that's type you know.Yeah, but there's a type of
cigarette that's I think more associated withMenthol, not Hots. Yeah. Yeahs,
So that I'm missing one. Marlborough's, Camels, Newports, there's like
an obvious one. There was likea really big brand, and I cannot
think of the big brand because Ithink Marlborough and Camels were the two biggest
(02:46):
probably of the time. I think, So what did I miss? What
were some of the other ones?A couple I would think about the top
of my head. Parliament's hm hm. Another one that I would think of
just because it's so you Nick VirginiaSlims. Yeah, Slims, that's how
I Paul Mall, Yeah, PaulMall Okay, Winston's Winston might be ones
(03:12):
you might, you know, mightthink of it. And then there's you
know, there's some other brands inthere that I don't know are super familiar
to me, but those are kindof some of the big ones. So
I think you hit some of thebig ones. But it's hard. I
got four. That's not bad,it did. You got real close,
all right, So give you someI won't say they're easier questions, but
they're you're either going to know themor you're gonna not. This one,
you probably won't. What cigarette brandintroduced the first widely successful filtered cigarette,
(03:38):
revolutionizing the smoking industry in the nineteenfifties. I'd say it's Marlborough. It's
actually not, it's Winston Winston,Okay, Winston Filters. In what year
was cigarette advertising on TV and radioband seventy six, You're close seventy one?
(03:59):
Okay one. As a result,as a result of the Public Health
Cigarettes Smoking Act in the nineteen nineties, what brand of cigarettes faced significant controversy
and legal challenges for its marketing tactics, which were criticized for targeting a youthful
audience through the use of animated charactersin bright colors. Oh, I'd say
(04:20):
that's Cammel for sure. It's definitelyCammel. We all remember Joe. It's
a cool cat. The kids lovedhim. I thought he was cool.
In twenty twenty one, how manyout of every one hundred US adults aged
eighteen years or older smoked cigarettes?What year? Twenty twenty one? Oh,
(04:42):
twenty twenty one. Yeah, thisjust recently. Out of one hundred,
I'd say nineteen. It's a littlelower. It's twelve. Oh,
that was gonna be my first guess, was it. Yeah, I was
gonna say twelve, and I'm like, that's too low. It's got to
be up hired. Well, that'sgood for America. Yeah. An estimated
twenty eight point three million adults inthe United States currently smoke. Last question,
(05:10):
what has been the best selling internationalcigarette brand since nineteen seventy two,
owning a forty percent share of theUS cigarette market in twenty seventeen. I'm
gonna go with my answer. That'sbeen the entire episode so far. Marlborough.
This time it's going to be correct. Yeah, it is Marlboro forty
(05:31):
I know. If I just answeredthat, I mean, I throw it
out enough eventually statistically hit Yeah.Forty percent. Yeah, forty percent share
of the US cigarette Market's believe.So, either depending where you sit,
either a huge success story or ayou know, massive failure to humanity.
Well, you know, Philip Morris, they you know, they got us
(05:51):
addicted. They've done some things,They've done some things. You know.
That's a good kind of segue in. Let's talk about the Marlboro Man campaign.
Why was this such a big success? I want to tell us a
little bit about the Marlboro Man,Patrick, do I Ever? So,
the Marlborough Man marketing campaign, launchedin nineteen fifty four, lasted all the
(06:15):
way up until nineteen ninety nine.The Marlboro Man, if you don't remember,
was portrayed by a cowboy figure,and he was the face of Marlborough
Cigarettes for all that time. Thewhole idea behind the Marlboro Man was they
wanted to associate smoking, you know, the idea of smoking a cigarette with
the rugged, independent spirit of theAmerican West, and the campaign aimed to
(06:41):
rebrand Marlborough from a filtered cigarette targetedat women to a symbol of masculinity.
The campaign proved to be highly successful, obviously, based on that quiz question
that you asked me, right,forty percent of the US market, turning
Marlborough into one of the most recognizableand best selling cigarette brands in the world.
It's worth noting that the campaign itselfwas something that changed the world,
(07:05):
but for better or worse, mainlyfor worse in this case. But you
know, I can't really talk aboutmarketing advertising history without talking about this campaign
to some extent. I mean,it's one of the most effective of all
time. Again for better or forworse. I'll tell you what. Doing
the research for this episode, whenI was looking through some of these ads,
(07:28):
my reaction was, Wow, thisbrand really they really seem like they
have no interest in women. Youknow, initially, until I found out
that background that they already had womencornered. They were actually trying to pivot
to get men on board when youknow that background. I think that that
adds a little context to it.So, you know, before we kind
of dive more into the Marlboro man, let's kind of address the big question.
(07:50):
I guess the thing some people mightbe thinking about is, you know,
is it okay to talk about amarketing campaign where the impact of that
campaign is, you know, pushinga product that has led to the death
or someone even say killed a massivenumber of people. What are your thoughts
on that? What do you sayto that, Patrick, I think you
(08:11):
could do that pretty much with anythingin this world, you know, even
if it does have a negative impact, because it teaches you something about the
way that we consume marketing and itseffect on us. And also it can
teach you how to maybe not havehistory repeat itself, you know, how
to overcome those effects when it comesto something that is marketing, something that's
(08:33):
harmful towards you. So to talkabout it, it's good. Yeah.
No, I think that was wellsaid. I think you know, we're
on the same page. I thinkit's important to talk about these things.
I think it's valuable for people tothink at a deeper level about what you're
being sold. And how things arebeing sold to you. And I think
it's valuable for marketers to think aboutthat too, Like, what's our role
(08:54):
in this? How are we complicitin, you know, the products that
are being sold to people. Whensomething we do is successful, does that
automatically mean it's a positive? Youknow? What does that mean for the
marketer and the company? That shouldbe weighing on everybody's mind. So I
think it's important to keep these thingsin the forefront and not just try to
bury them in the past like theydidn't happen looking back, you know,
(09:16):
looking at some of these advertisements,looking at this campaign, this idea,
this this hyper masculine you know,cowboy idea. Why was this such a
big success? We talk about itin the intro, like when we talk
about the Marlborough Man campaign itself.You know, this idea of you know,
drawing on the male ego or youknow, the male's desired to be
(09:41):
masculine, you know, the maledrive to be so manly, trying to
harness that in a campaign, likea marketing campaign and say everything about this
product will make you like that.I don't know of any other product.
I can't think of it the otherproduct, off the top of my head
(10:01):
that ever tried to be that fora whole gender gender. Yeah, you
know, yeah, it almost playsyou know, you look at it now,
it's almost like a parody of itself. But you know, at the
time, obviously this is when thiscame out. This is like in John
(10:22):
Wayne's America. This is kind ofpeak cowboy. And what they were selling
you they weren't you know, theywere not selling you the product at all.
They were selling you this attitude,right, Yeah, you could adopt
this attitude and it was it waslike ultimate madness, and it worked.
I don't know how many of theseI looked at, not a lot of
(10:46):
there's variation, but within a smallbox yeah right, yeah, I mean
they knew what they were doing,and they just hit it over and over
and over again because they had it. Yeah, they had it and it
was working. Yeah, were like, here's my money, yeah, here's
my here's my health, here's myYeah. But they they didn't know,
(11:09):
they didn't know that at the time. It's the ideal, right, it's
the idea that they were selling youand you were buying it. That's a
tough thing to do. I mean, that's why I say like, I
can't think of really any other productsthat do that to that degree. We
were consuming something that is not goodfor us. I know there's products everywhere
like this. I mean, youknow, we're still eating junk food,
(11:30):
we're still eating sugar. We're talkingabout cancer, right, like this idea
like lung cancer. Ah. Youknow, yeah, a lot of people
who bought into that idea that we'retalking about. We're buying into this idea,
and all they really needed to dowas buy into it for a temporary
amount of time because then they're addicted. Right, So it's a it's a
(11:52):
unique product in that way, andthat's you know, that's kind of the
beauty of marketing is like if youdo it, and you do it just
right, you can hit you canhit that nerve or you can hit that
you know, that sweet spot ofwhat a person desires, right, And
in this case, it's really focusedon whole gender, which is what's so
strange about it. It's like whatdo men want? Obviously, at the
(12:16):
time this came out, the Westernruled Supreme and stuff. We've seen that
kind of like die off, orwe've had like revisionist Westerns like Unforgiven and
stuff. Come out. But evennow, I think, you know,
this idea of like the cowboy freeon the range. You know, there's
something in the brain, or atleast in the male brain that is like
triggered or turned on by like cowboyimagery that this campaign just like really tapped
(12:43):
into. So let's talk about someof the ads we picked out kind of
a few to just talk about someof the variation or what kind of we're
seeing that is going on there.Do you want to talk about some of
the ones that kind of popped outto you? Again, I you know,
when I'm looking at a lot ofthese, I was impressed by while
they worked within this box they created, you know, I know, like
in the later years they kind ofworked with like some stock car racers and
(13:07):
stuff like that and did some kindof different things. But I think for
the most part, what I foundwas fairly you know, on message for
most of the way through. Andwe're talking decades. Yeah, cowboys on
horses, lassos a lot of timessmoking the cigarette, but sometimes you didn't
even see the cigarette. Sometimes justalluded to the feeling, yeah, and
(13:30):
and really capturing like that raw youknow, the raw emotion in imagery of
a cowboy in actions. That's whereit happened. I mean, there was
some early you know ads with likeclose ups of cowboys, but then it
really kind of morphed and evolved intothis a cowboy with a lasso riding a
(13:52):
horse, dirt coming up behind him, looks like he is wrangling a steer
or something, you know, cometo Marlborough Country. I picked a couple.
One is a spread in a magazineof that same imagery usually has a
red shirt on white jacket in somecases. And then there's another one where
it's just a one page spread ofhim sort of riding this horse up this
(14:15):
like hillside, trying to climb thissort of like peak. It looks like
same thing, Come to Marlborough Country. And the reason why I picked these
two in my mind was because Ifeel like any one of these ads I
remember them, they are so burnedinto my brain. That's how true,
like you said, it is,to the message and consistency of that message.
(14:39):
So I picked these too. Andmainly, you know, they were
you could tell they were in tradepublications or something. You know, it
could have been a magazine of whoknows what it was, but they were
in everything, you know, theywere everywhere. So I do feel like,
you know, they as we talkedabout cigarette brands lost the ability to
(15:00):
advertise on TV and radio and said, okay, let's take all that money
and make sure we are advertising inevery magazine that is published anywhere at any
time. Yeah, because I feellike all of these ads, like you
said, whether I actually saw themor not, I feel like every magazine
I saw when I was in adoctor's office as a kid, on the
(15:22):
back page was a cigarette ad.M H. I don't know if that's
true or not, but that's inmy mind. That's that's what I remember.
Yeah, every every magazine everywhere youwent. And I mean, you
know, we say magazines because forthose who are listening who might be a
little younger, magazines. What aremagazines right or what? I guess,
(15:48):
when's the last time you saw magazinebut a thing? Yeah. When we
were young, I mean everything wascentered around magazines, like magazines were the
Internet. Yeah, they were yourperiodical. I mean it was that was
how you got some information. Yeah, it was timely. It wasn't a
book, so you know, everythingwas sort of riding on those magazines.
(16:11):
And I mean you see that,you see that because most of these are
advertisements in magazines. Yeah, andone of the ones I picked out was,
you know, not nothing super atypical. In many ways, it's very
typical, and that's why I pickedit out. I think it was just
(16:32):
the cowboy in particular in this one, and the you know, scal in
his face. But he has allalmost all the features you described to a
t. He's got the white hat, he's got the red shirt, he's
wearing a leather vest. He's standingin a bar, and he's got one
arm out, he's got the otherhand reaching in his pocket for a match.
He's got a nice, very strongmustache like Tom Selick style. He's
(16:56):
got the cigarette dangling from his mouth. Looks like he's getting ready for something
because on his arm, he's gota rope in his hand. He's clutching
like a leather cloth. So Idon't know what he's going out there to
do. You know, he's surroundedby wood, very rustic scenario. I
don't know, he's going out thereto do some hard work. But before
(17:18):
he does, he's picking up aquick smoke, or maybe he's gonna smoke
while he works, you know,And then you get that, you know,
superimposed over the top. You getthat that tagline that they just forever.
This is all they did. Theydidn't they didn't mess with a lot
a lot more other stuff. Theyjust put it on there. Come to
where the flavor is, which isa call both to the cigarette, you
know, and both a call tothis kind of come to this attitude,
(17:41):
you know, give yourself some flavor, become this type of man. Yeah,
that's really the interesting thing. Youknow, you said they don't they
don't veer too much. Right.It's one of these two sort of major
iconic images of the Marlborough man.He's a close up shot smoking a cigarette
(18:02):
or getting ready to smoke or lightingup, or he's with his horse,
and it's sort of those two things. It's one of the two, and
the one is like a close upshot when they needed to do those.
The other is this like this isthis is the environment that a cowboy is
in, right, This is histrusty sidekick. This is how you get
(18:22):
the work done right, and itgives you. They'll show you the you
know, the variation they worked withis let's send this one. Let's show
him more of the vista, right, Let's show him like the mountains,
the snowcapped mountains, or you know, it's like a dusty, dusty horse
ranch we're working in. Let's givehim more of that, show him like
(18:44):
the freedom of open spaces, orin some cases it's you know, an
extreme close up. I could thinkone that I thought was pretty pretty good
was just a match lighting on aboot mm hmm, yeah, which is
just you know, it doesn't showyou that much, but it tells you
everything about this type of guy andabout what's you know, you know,
exactly what's happening. It kind ofjust strikes a real feeling there. But
(19:07):
still again, playing in the samebox. We've just we're close up or
we're zoomed out, but we're notreally going anywhere else. Yeah, because
it worked, right, it wasworking, and why mess with the formula,
you know? So I will shareone other thing that kind of I
found that tweaked the formula. Thiswas a nineteen sixty eight commercial before they
(19:33):
were banned. Now, this onemore directly kind of ties into the time
and more directly associates with kind ofthe urban dwellers. In the beginning,
Oh, he starts off, You'rein a plane, a modern machine with
a lady, even a lady,can you believe it? Even though we're
smoking, we're still in this inthis plane. And before we get to
(19:53):
the cowboys and we start off,you know, you have this this almost
booming orchestrated and bench your type musicwhile you get this almost Doctor Seuss like
narrator reading this copy over top thatreads, Marlborough Country is everywhere anywhere in
the land, from east to west, north to south, from the Lakes
(20:14):
to the Rio Grande, from ManhattanTowers to Towering Pines. The Marlboro legend
grew till today. It's the brandthat won the West and the rest of
the country too. But then theytake you, you know, you go
from this plane and this this manand this woman too. Of course you
end up in Marlborough Country, youknow, back in the open v S
(20:36):
day. You're back with the cowboys. So it kind of it starts you
off and you're like, oh amI getting something different? Here are we
are? We veering a little bit, And then of course they they take
you back where you belong, youknow, out with the Marlboro Man.
Yeah, and Cindy lou who it'sa very very you know, flow free,
(20:59):
flowing poetic. Yeah, when youread it like that, I do
hear the doctor Seuss. Yeah.Yeah, we fell for it. We
fell for it. When you thinkabout it too, like that's nineteen sixty
eight. Yeah, that's four yearsbefore it's banned, right, wow,
(21:22):
seventy one so three years yeah years, yep. So I wonder, you
know if that was sort of thetail end anyway they knew maybe they knew
it was coming. I just think, you know, that time period,
there was like obviously a lot ofchange going on in the country. They
probably felt this, here's this pulltowards you know, this modern world.
(21:42):
I still remember you could pay forand get, you know, the range
jacket from Marlborough, cut it outand you would mail it in and you
would get the h Then they hadthe Marlborough like club, you know in
the magazines where you could like getpoints and then you could get gear gear.
(22:03):
Huh were you in the club?Did you have the jacket? I
didn't have a jacket. No.I just remember those things and thinking they
were cool, even though I lookback and go, thank god, I
could never get any of that stuff. I would not want pictures of me
with the Marbro, aren't you glad. I mean, this is like one
(22:23):
of those things where you're like,man, I'm glad some of these things.
I'm like, ah, it's soawesome. I wish I was a
part of that. You're just like, I'm really glad I didn't do that.
Yeah. Another kind of thing ofnotes. I never saw this,
but the nineteen ninety one movie,Yeah, Harley Davidson and the Marble Man.
This was an actual name of amovie. Oh yeah, that came
(22:45):
out Mickey ur and Don Johnson.Yeah, two brands in the title of
an actual movie, two like ingrainedbrands, and it wasn't a parody movie.
It was real. They were playingguys who fit those those mold of
that kind of like iconic characters,right, and two guys who sort of
embodied that. I think at thattime it's probably a brand's dream come true
(23:06):
when somebody's like, hey, youryour brand is in this movie title.
Do you know anything else like that? I mean I can't think of any
other brand. I mean the Legomovie. Yeah, there's no there's no
like mascot right case there is.We just yeah, maybe we just don't
know about it better or worse.The Marlboro Man part of our culture,
part of our history, part ofdefinitely part of marketing history. Yeah,
(23:30):
they tapped into the male aspiration ofcowboy and being wild, you know,
and regardless of how time, howmuch time is span like you said,
even today, there is still thatalmost like longing for something that is an
era that's gone. Right, it'sit's not really like that anymore, if
(23:52):
it ever even was, if thatever, if that thing, this myth
ever even existed, Yeah, whichyou know, I think people would probably
argue that it did, but itwasn't in our lifetime, not to this
degree. It wasn't probably as coolas they make it seem, probably not
last You're like, wonder those wanderingcowboys, we just do that wandering.
(24:17):
I'm so free to live. However, I won't. Can I bump a
cigarette off you? So let usknow what you think of smoking or the
Marlboro Man campaign, probably more specificallythe Marlboro Man campaign, because that's what
we talked about today. But ifyou do want to give us your opinions
on something, that's fine. Youknow, smoking is a really you like
(24:37):
messages from Joe Cammell. Yeah,it's just you just get the Surgeon General's
warning right Smoking by pregnant women mayresult in fetal injury, premature birth,
and low birth weight. Did yousay injury, injury, in injury,
(24:59):
injury. Well, that's it fortoday's episode. Everyone. You can find
current and past episodes of the podcaston Speaking human dot com. We'll be
back in tuc
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