Marlboro Man

The Marlboro Man is a figure used in tobacco advertising campaigns for Marlboro cigarettes. In the United States, where the campaign originated, it was used from 1954 to 1999. The Marlboro Man was first conceived by Leo Burnett in 1954. The images initially featured rugged men portrayed in a variety of roles but later primarily featured a rugged cowboy or cowboys, in nature with a cigarette. The advertisements were originally conceived as a way to popularize filtered cigarettes, which at the time were considered feminine.

The Marlboro advertising campaign, created by Leo Burnett Worldwide, is said to be one of the most brilliant advertisement campaigns of all time. It transformed a feminine campaign, with the slogan "Mild as May", into one that was masculine, in a matter of months. There were many Marlboro Men. The first models were a Navy Lieutenant and Andy Armstrong, the ad agency’s art supervisor. Other early models were sales promotion director of Philip Morris, Robert Larking, and others from the Leo Burnett ad agency, Lee Stanley and Owen Smith. A number of models who have portrayed the Marlboro Man have died of smoking-related diseases.

Cowboys proved to be popular, which led to the "Marlboro Cowboy" and "Marlboro Country" campaigns.

Philip Morris & Co. (now Altria) had originally introduced the Marlboro brand as a woman's cigarette in 1924. Starting in the early 1950s, the cigarette industry began to focus on promoting filtered cigarettes, as a response to the emerging scientific data about harmful effects of smoking. Under the impression that filtered cigarettes were safer, Marlboro, as well as other brands, started to be sold with filters. However, filtered cigarettes, Marlboro in particular, were considered to be women’s cigarettes. During market research in the 1950s, men indicated that while they would consider switching to a filtered cigarette, they were concerned about being seen smoking a cigarette marketed to women.

The repositioning of Marlboro as a men's cigarette was handled by Chicago advertiser Leo Burnett. Most filtered cigarette advertising sought to make claims about the technology behind the filter: through the use of complex terminology and scientific claims regarding the filter, the cigarette industry wanted to ease fears about the harmful effects of cigarette smoking through risk reduction. However, Leo Burnett decided to address the growing fears through an entirely different approach: creating ads completely void of health concerns or health claims of the filtered cigarette. Burnett felt that making claims about the effectiveness of filters furthered concerns of the long-term effects of smoking. Thus, refusing to respond to health claims matched the emergent, masculine image of the New Marlboro.

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