If you carry out an online survey then every second participant when responding to the question about the most popular cigarettes brand will say “Marlboro”. So what's the secret of this brand? Why when we say cigarettes the first thing that comes to our mind is to buy Marlboro? How come this brand has managed not only to survive the terrible financial and image crisis and not just stay afloat but also become one of the symbols of the US? Of the smoking US?
The story of the brand started in 1902 when British tobacconist Philip Morris established his company selling tobacco products in New York. Marlboro cigarettes were first presented in 1924 as cigarettes for women.
Marlboro brand is one of the most recognizable and best-selling cigarettes brands in the world. It's famous for its widely known Cowboy ads series. The researches carried out by the CDC in 2001-2003 have shown that among all smoking students (and that is about 41.8% of all American students) 52% of them usually smoke Marlboro cigarettes. In other words, every forth student in the USA smokes this production.
Marlboro – the best cigarettes brand
In the early 1960s Philip Morris Company was the smallest of the six leading tobacco companies in the States and Winston had annual sales almost three times as much as Marlboro did. But by 1978 a marketing breakthrough had happened: Marlboro became the best brand in the world in terms of sales. Every fifth smoker in the USA and more than half smokers aged 17 to 28 began to buy Marlboro cigarettes. And it's not just about buying cigarettes in the Internet.
Originally Marlboro was a ‘women's' brand and only few wanted to buy its production. And only later with the help of three superb advertising campaigns the image of true men's cigarettes was created. It can be said that a new type of products with a higher level of nicotine, unique taste, mildness in mouth and stronger feeling in throat appeared. All this is to a great degree the result of the higher pH level of smoke.
The success of Marlboro cigarettes has always depended and still depends on the large advertising investments made by the manufacturers. Thus, in particular, there was a significant sponsorship in motorsport – since 1997 the famous logo could be seen on F1 race cars of Ferrari team. The red and white logo suited well Ferrari race cars (but especially it concerned millions of dollars allocated by Philip Morris). That had lasted until recently and then in 2009 the total ban on sponsorship of F1 teams by tobacco companies came into effect. Philip Morris managed to ‘hold out' in F1 advertising longer than any other corporations.
Indeed, the fact that more and more people prefer purchase Marlboro cigarettes is the most striking example of their successful advertising. However, the ‘chemical' history of this brand casts an alternative light on this subject.
No wonder that the striking boost of sales attracted attention of other tobacco manufacturers. Having analyzed Marlboro cigarettes business rivals came to the conclusion that the principal feature of the brand was its ammonia technology. Philip Morris started using ammoniated sheets in 1965 and periodically increased the usage of these sheets form 1965 to 1974. This period of time corresponds to the fast business growth of Philip Morris which took place in 1965-1974.
Buy Marlboro cigarettes online in the USA
You want to buy Marlboro cigarettes online in the USA, but do you know what technology has made Marlboro the number one cigarettes? Considering the whole technology used in the manufacture on an international scale we have to admit that ammonia technology is the key factor.
High level of pH in Marlboro cigarettes helped sustain the same high level of free-base nicotine and with that allowed to reduce the amount of tars and nicotine by 2/3 and develop true American flavor while extending the usage of a real American ‘Marlboro Cowboy' image.
The very cowboy is not tightly bound to the Wild West exploration era and, indeed, can the Cowboy image from the globally and truly never-ending Philip Morris advertising campaign be considered somehow a historical one? But this Cowboy is not a concrete historical image and even not a literary historical one. First of all it's the image of a ‘true man' which has already stepped out of its historic context. It's a stereotype they want to transform into an image of a perfect man by means of enormous advertising spending. The cowboy from the ad is one of the possible states of a person, a part of a personal, individual consciousness of a man.
Cheap Marlboro cigarettes via online stores
Smokers in the USA like buying cheap Marlboro cigarettes via online stores as it's often quite expensive to buy cigarettes in traditional stores and it's 2-2.5 times cheaper to do that in the Web. But businessmen and officials are getting sick and tired of Marlboro cigarettes being sold online, thus they are eager to shut down online stores selling them.
For example, in April, 2003 in California 5 online cigarettes stores were brought a suit against having been accused of not paying taxes to the sum of $54 million dollars and selling their products to kids. The same was done in New York and many other states.
But, in spite of all legislative initiatives and acts online sales of cheap cigarettes are growing. Probably no one knows exactly how many online stores sell cheap Marlboro cigarettes – all we know is that the number of such stores is implacably growing. It's understandable why this business is very profitable - they purchase cigarettes in bulk at the cheapest prices and then sell these cigarettes round-the-clock at low prices if compared to offline stores.
For instance, Ali Davoudi, the president of the Online Tobacco Retailers Association (OLTRA) thinks that cigarettes are the ideal product to be bought via the Internet. In Switzerland you can purchase a carton of Marlboro at the price of $15 inclusive of postal delivery, and that is rather cheap. And in the USA you would have to spend $37 to order the same 10 packs of cigarettes. In New York due to the tax on each pack being equal to $3.5 such a purchase may cost up to $75. I think it's clear that it's much cheaper to order cigarettes for $15 rather than for $75.
Buy Marlboro Gold cigarettes online at a low price
According to Philip Morris assurance the most popular cigarettes in the US market are Marlboro Gold. One can buy Marlboro Lights online at much cheaper price. This variation of Marlboro entered the market in 1971, but only recently the label telling about ‘tar and nicotine low content' has disappeared from the cigarettes packs.
Philip Morris Company has previously stated that when purchase Marlboro Lights cigarettes you make less damage to your health, but that statement has caused various lawsuits which are down to the fact that Marlboro buyers consider themselves having been deceived.
The vice president of Philip Morris USA believes that claimants are not able to prove that there was any consumer fraud and that the health of those who had bought Marlboro Lights was harmed as all the packs of this brand bear the same health warnings and that when buying cigarettes smokers can't know whether Marlboro Gold are as harmful as regular cigarettes. But the question is not about proving of infliction of harm to a particular smoker, but about protection of rights of all those who buy or are going to order Marlboro Gold cigarettes, so it concerns not the very purchases but the deceptive advertising.
Having examined the production of different brands the experts from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention located in Atlanta came to the following conclusion – Marlboro cigarettes manufactured by Philip Morris in the USA could be much more harmful than their analogs produced in other countries. There are much more potent carcinogens (nitrosamines) in the American version bought by many smokers. American scientists have compared the content of these substances in Marlboro cigarettes produced in the US with those produced in 13 other countries and 11 of those contained much less nitrosamines than the product made in the US.
But it is characteristic of the majority of American cigarettes brands, which is the result of the usage of tobacco grown in the States.
Maybe it's worth trying to give up smoking, trying to decrease your daily rate by at least several Marlboro cigarettes... That may prolong your life for a few days as a minimum. It's not so little, isn't it?
"Give up smoking - there is nothing so easy. I personally did it hundreds of times."