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How the Marlboro Man's shift in marketing lead to it's success -…
How the Marlboro Man's shift in marketing lead to it's success
Changing Target Audience
The Original Marlboro Woman
Original brand= target audience was young women
Original brand had elements that were appealing to women.
E.g: cigarette was designed to not ruin a lady's lipstick if she used it to smoke.
Marlboro used the ideas of a "classy lady" smoking to market their brand as more feminine.
The change to the Marlboro Man
Cigarette business witnessed a drop in sales due to rising health concerns around smoking.
Changed their marketing strategy to save business.
Marlboro Man=Changed target audience to young men.
Changed the entire look of the cigarettes to be more sturdy, so that men could keep cigarette packets in their pockets without them getting squished due to rough surroundings.
Marketing brand changed to represent more masculine concepts (Three Psychological Pushes.)
Combating Health Concerns
The Solution
To combat the concern for health issues people had, the Phillips Morris company started advertising their filtered cigarettes more.
Filtered cigarettes= caused less harm to health than unfiltered cigarettes.
While this wasn't their primary marketing strategy it did still help them attract people back to their brand.
Filtered cigarettes= secondary marketing strategy
The Issue
Sales started dropping for cigarette companies because of rising health concerns amongst the public
Four people died due to smoking related health complications.
They became original "Marlboro Men" before that image was used to advertise Marlboros brand.
Eventually the common public came to know about the dangers of smoking.
40% of Americans agreed that cigarettes were the leading cause of lung cancer.
Three Psychological Pushes
Cowboy Archetype
During that time (around the 1950s) Marlboro used the image of a cowboy to promote their cigarettes.
Among young men the image of the cowboy was seen as an adventurous warrior who explores Marlboro Country.
=A role model
When people saw this image of the cowboy smoking, it had a psychological impact on them, making them more inclined to follow in the footsteps of the figure.
American Values
Many men during those times held such values in high regard
Saw those values as part of their identity as Americans.
The Marlboro man portrayed liberty and independence.
Marlboro itself also represented the heart of America through the beautiful natural surroundings, contributing to American pride.
Due to how smoking was advertised using American ideas people were attracted to embrace how “American" they were through smoking
Especially true for young men who inherently were supposed to portray the American identity.
Masculinity
Masculine concepts attracted the young male audience who sought to emulate these values and incorporate them within themselves.
The promotion of the Marlboro man focused on his masculine features like independence, pride, and self-sufficiency.
Seeing these masculine values represented through smoking= young men to want to apply this in their lives as well.