Archive for the ‘marlboro’ Tag
The children are wise
I have just 
arrived back in Brighton, England, from my most recent visit to Munich. A favourite pastime there is photographing and commenting on cigarette advertising. It never ceases to amaze me.
Not so long ago I wrote a piece called Raddled Old Man (right) where the assumption is that if you smoke you will eventually turn into him having been a handsome chap (above left). Such is the impact of these lethal products.
Well, the children in Brighton have got it all sussed (right). Good for them.
Luckies hoping we do not notice?
Filed under: Cigarette advertising | Tags: Camel, Gauloises, Luckies, marlboro
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I suppose that when the UK leaves the EU and Nigel Farage becomes PM at the behest of the US President, then cigarette advertising will be back on the streets of the UK as they are in Germany. The run up to Christmas is not the best time to see this particular species of advertising, but the Lucky Strike – Luckies – brand is loitering in U-Bahn Stations in Munich (left).
What is interesting about this one, notwithstanding its lack of imagination – good deal and thick, if my translation is up to it – is that it is forced to show something nasty on the front. Inside the black band on the packet is an ashtray with the ash forming the shape of a foetus. This is the first time that I have seen this on street posters. It raises the question as to whether the advertisers could have avoided this by not showing the packet? If they are able to do so, then this is an even more stupid billboard than I had first thought. If they cannot, how is the negative image going to be represeted on more alluring advertising such as that practised by Marlboro, Camel and Gauloises? I trust the answer will come like the answer to plenty of other potentially lethal questions (Trump, le Pen, Wilders) in the much-anticipated 2017!
Three killers together
Filed under: Cigarette advertising | Tags: Chesterfield, L&M, marlboro
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The three killer brands appear on the same billboard – Marlboro, L&M and Chesterfield. To what end?
Seemingly, they will now have the same box but with similar numbers of sticks. I assume this is something to do with European packaging regulations where two-thirds of the pack have to show the lethal side of the product rather than the brand. I need to check the packets in the shop.
The 65 per cent rule
Finally, cigarette packets in the UK will look like this once the current stock has been sold! Brands will no longer draw in users. Only nicotine and addiction.
However, readers of this blog know only too well that in Germany, cigarette advertising continues for inexplicable reasons. But it is about to change considerably. The 65 per cent rule comes from the European Commission and states that 65 per cent of any cigarette packet must be covered with warnings about the lethality of the contents in all member states. So, take Marlboro, with it’s You Decide campaign (right).
The campaign posters and the packet is all about the brand. Currently, about one-third of the packet contains the warning Rauchen kann tödlich sein (smoking can be deadly). So, that warning will have to be doubled on both sides. How much room left for the brand? We’ll see how the advertising responds to this challenge. At the moment, there are no new posters on railway stations or on the side of the roads to evaluate!
Marlboro’s You Decide goes raddled old man
Filed under: Cigarette advertising, Uncategorized | Tags: marlboro, You Decide
Comments (2) 
Naturally I thought the point of advertising was to sell products. So, use beautiful people doing interesting things in the sunshine. Clearly, I am no marketeer. However, I need some guidance on the logic of Marlboro’s latest use of a raddled old man lighting up a cigarette (left). As for the strapline, will the world care what your name was (assuming he does not have too much life left in him)? No idea!
Marlboro has another You Decide poster current (right). This is more like it. Handsome, fit, bearded man with cigarette looks into the camera. Another seemingly meaningless strapline, ‘Will you stay real’? ‘Will you turn into the raddled old man?’ strikes me as being more appropriate.
You Decide, the new Maybe
Filed under: Cigarette advertising, Uncategorized | Tags: marlboro, You Decide
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A few weeks ago Marlboro started posting up their blank You Decide. posters (left) in that marketing ruse to spark interest. You Decide. what? An urban mystery that is compelling. The next installment is then eagerly anticipated.
The theme is now developing well across Germany and presumably other territories where
cigarette advertising is still permitted. Here are two examples. First, we are asked “Is up the only way?” in hand-written red letters. An image of a mature blond-haired woman accompanies the slogan.
Men, by contrast, are asked “How far is enough?” in similarly fonted writing. The man is modern urban figure courting a beard and sitting on what seems to be a wooden box.
OK, this is an unfolding narrative. There are more to come, for sure. Though, let me re-iterate, there is only one direction for smokers and this point is far enough. Quit.
Gauloises spring campaign
It is Gauloises’ spring in the cigarette advertising race now on in Germany. Two new posters have appeared, both extolling the virtues of being young, as youth hides the fact that the product is lethal and makes consumers chronically ill. So, exhibit one (left) has a bunch of millennials demonstrating how difficult things are at the moment for them as the can clearly only afford one set of clothes. Hence, in order to wash their clothes, they have to take them off and expose their youth, the women particularly. And because they cannot read (the normal thing to do in a Launderette), they have stolen a shopping trolley in order to play with it, costing me, the supermarket customer, more money because it has to be replaced at some point. Strapline-wise, stuff about being wet and having fun.
Exhibit two (right) is clearly set somewhere warmer than Munich at the moment; but shares 
with its companion poster Millennials’ aversion to clothes. This time, two couples stand on top of a 4×4 with very little on. The light shining through the car windows suggests that they have parked close to an airport runway. They may well have a death wish? Better to be sucked into the engines of a landing airliner than succumb to chronic disease associated with the advertised product. If my hypothesis is wrong and they are actually in Munich, hypothermia will do the same trick for them. Strapline is something about freedom, brotherhood and serenity.
Finally, on the subject of death, Marlboro has come back strong with its You Decide campaign (left). Easy as ever. No!
New death delivery method
Filed under: Cigarette advertising | Tags: Lucky Strike, marlboro
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I wish I was as advanced as the product developers at Marlboro (bottom rigtht) and Lucky Strike (left). Is this the innovation equivalent of vinyl to cassette in the music industry (i.e. not really)? So, there are new filters on the market delivering “a cleaner taste” (Marlboro does not even bother to accommodate the language of the smoker, in this case German) and mildness through a “new flow filter” (Lucky Strike).
It does seem that the designers of the Marlboro poster did not trial it properly. On this example, if the
poster is not perfectly pasted on the billboard, it does not matter how advanced the filter, the cigarette itself seems a shade, what can I say, bent. Never mind, advanced cigarettes are just as effective at delivering death as their predecessors.
Finally some good advice from Marlboro
The Marlboro ‘Maybe’ campaign is back on the streets of Munich and presumably the rest of Germany. Much missed, I have to say. For once, it seems, the statement has something going for it. I am learning myself how to do this consistently. ‘Maybe’ it is a function of age? ‘Maybe’ a function of maturity?
Linking it with cigarette consumption, however, is not quite such a positive. ‘Maybe’ it will just be ignored. ‘Maybe’.
Autumn smoking
Filed under: Cigarette advertising | Tags: Don't be a Maybe, marlboro, Pall Mall
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Pall Mall’s Autumn campaign is not really anything to write home about. The packs (left) basically say, “look at me”. But what does it really mean to be a limited edition cigarette; and more bizarrely, to have unlimited taste? Surely they mean lots of carcinogenic burnt tobacco taste that burns one’s tongue and lingers longer than rivals’ brands? Or some such.
Marlboro’s Endurance Man campaign is a little clearer after the arrival of the new poster
(right). Endurance Man here has a motorbike, though he remains inexplicably riding across the desert in search of a tobacconist.
Be informed 