Now it is incredibly difficult to say what begat what, did the culture of smokers in this era influence the way ATC went about its advertising? Or did the ATC’s advertising influence the culture to smoke? I would say both! If you didn’t smoke, that was just your personal choice, but you were still constantly exposed to it everywhere you went. Smoking was allowed EVERYWHERE from restaurants, to hotel rooms, to taxi cabs. This was also because the severity of what smoking does to your over all health was not publically common knowledge at this time. In the 1920’s smoking was not demonized or veiwed as it is today. Sales went from 14 billion cigarettes in 1925 to 40 billion sold in 1930, making Lucky Strike the leading brand nationwide.(5) Sales of Lucky Strikes increased by more than 300% during the first year of the advertising campaign. Hollywood director King Vidor was featured in a 1927 advert that included his photograph, signature, plug for his silent film hit “ The Big Parade”, and testimonial stating: “It is wonderful to find a cigarette that relaxes your nerves and at the same time insures you against throat irritation-a condition from which film directors are bound to suffer”.(4) In the mid 1920s, the brand was sold as a route to thinness for women. B.A Rolfe, following Warner Bros’ 1927 release of “ The Jazz Singer”, the world’s first synchronized “talking picture” that made movies into a mass phenomenon, the ATC which owned Lucky Strike, sought Hollywood endorsements for an ongoing campaign that claimed Lucky Strike spared smokers’ throats and protected their voices (3). Throughout the 1920s, Lucky Strike was the primary cigarette is association with radio music programs of the era through broadcastings made by NBC (1). Notably by 1928, the bandleader and vaudeville producer B.A Rolfe was both performing and recording under the name “B.A Rolfe and his Lucky Strike Orchestra” (2). (1) Although, this process may have altered the flavor of the tobacco, it in no way reduced any of the medical risks or side effects surrounding smoking as some ads very blatantly claimed the process did. In 1917, the brand started using the slogan, “It’s Toasted”, to inform consumers about the manufacturing method in which the tobacco is toasted rather than sun-dried, a process touted as making the cigarettes taste delicious. In this post I will provide a brief history of the lucky strike cigarette campaign, how it sociologically impacted the culture of the era, a brief semiotic analysis of one its print advertisements, and then I will dive into the ethics that surround this campaign as well as my personal opinions about those issues.Ī Brief History of Lucky Strike through the 20’s: This campaign was one of the most successful of any in its time in terms of the finances that it generated for the American Tobacco Company (ATC) and this campaign continued on for many years, HOWEVER, it breaches entire constructs of moral ethics by the standards that we hold today. Arguably the largest and most strategically devised campaign for any cigarette in history,was for the Lucky Strike brand of cigarettes throughout the course of the 1920’s and into the 1930’s.
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