Tobacco Documents Online

THE FEMALE SMOKER MARKET

Abstract

This paper from the Lorillard Tobacco Company explores the reasons why women are a good target market for cigarettes. Specific reasons include the fact that more women are starting to smoke, fewer are able to quit smoking and women are increasing the amount that they smoke per capita:

"...The growing importance of the female smoker is due to several factors including fewer females quitting, more females beginning to smoke, and female smokers increasing their daily cigarette volume....According to a recent HEW study, only 13% of adult women have given up smoking compared with 33% of adult males. Even assuming somewhat exaggerated figures, it is obvious that men are more likely to discontinue cigarette smoking."

Lorillard also thought that girls were an important target market because young girls were starting to take up smoking at a faster rate than young boys:

"And though one million adults are quitting smoking annually, teenagers are beginning to smoke in increasing numbers, with girls accounting for a growing proportion of teenage smokers. In the last four years, smoking among the 12 to 18 year age group increased from 14.7% to 15.7% among boys and from 8.4% to 13.3% among girls."

Here Lorillard ponders why fewer women quit than men: Their first hypotheses:

"One is the greater concern women have that if they stop smoking they will gain weight. This fear undoubtedly prevents many women from desiring to stop smoking."

This next hypothesis carries with it an implicit acknowledgement that cigarettes do, in fact, cause disease (and this was 1973):

"In addition, the first studies relating to smoking and health used male subjects. Because women were not shown evidence that smoking was equally deleterious to their own health, there was less reason for them to quit. However, recent studies have shown that as women's smoking habits become more like men's, women smokers become more prone to the same illnesses as male smokers."

Lorillard's assessment of the advertising copy for Eve cigarettes is also interesting. Eve was a cigarette with flowers printed on the paper around the tip, and was advertised typically with "cigarette packs frequently held in a brightly nail-polished hand against a background of flower/plants or in traditional feminine hobby situations..."

"This traditional and very feminine approach...is directed to the woman whose life revolves around her role as a women, being pretty, soft, and feminine and gaining fulfillment from acceptably female hobbies. Even the promotion offered, a horoscope, exemplifies women's passivity and lack of control over her own future."

Fields

Quotes

A cigarette positioned for the working woman, to relax and steady her nerves when the tension is mounting by serving as a socially acceptable tranquilizer deserves investigation. Unlike Eve, her cigarette will not symbolize passive femininity; unlike Virginia Slims, her cigarette will not be an overt demand for equality. She is liberated in her lifestyle and her cigarette is part of that lifestyle."

...The growing importance of the female smoker is due to several factors including fewer females quitting, more females beginning to smoke, and female smokers increasing their daily cigarette volume.

According to a recent HEW study, only 13% of adult women have given up smoking compared with 33% of adult males. Even assuming somewhat exaggerated figures, it is obvious that men are more likely to discontinue cigarette smoking.

And though one million adults are quitting smoking annually, teenagers are beginning to smoke in increasing numbers, with girls accounting for a growing proportion of teenage smokers. In the last four years, smoking among the 12 to 18 year age group increased from 14.7% to 15.7% among boys and from 8.4% to 13.3% among girls. The narrowing gap between the sexes in the early years is significant because it proceeds fewer smoking differences between the sexes in adult years.

Also, women are catching up with men in the daily volume smoked. Though women continue to smoke fewer cigarettes per day than do men...HEW reports that the percentage of women smoking a pack or more a day has doubled between 1955 adn 1966.

Hypthesis to Explain Market Facts:

1. Several reasons have been proposed to explain why more women than men are weither unwilling or unable to stop smoking.

One is the greater concern women have that if they stop smoking they will gain weight. This fear undoubtedly prevents many women from desiring to stop smoking.

...In addition, the first studies relating to smoking and health used male subjects. Because women were not shown evidence that smoking was equally deleterious to their own health, there was less reason for them to quit. However, recent studies have shown that as women's smoking habits become more like men's, women smokers become more prone to the same illnesses as male smokers.

As a result, many women now share with men both their concern about the effect of smoking on health and their desire to quit smoking.

...However, the problem appears to be that women, and particularly working women, have less success in quitting and staying off cigarettes...This implies that as the percentage of working women continues to increase...the percentage of women who smoke can also be expected to increase.

Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this relationship betweenwomen's working and smoking as follows.

For many people, male and female, smoking serves as a means of reducing tension...HEW data suggest that women who smoke, and particularly working women who smoke, are more prone to use cigarettes as a means of reducing tension. They may be because working women as a group are subject to more pressures than their non-working counterpoarts and use cigarettes as a way of decreasing these unpleasant feelings.

Another hypothesis is that a working women is more likely to be concerned with her freedom and her choice of lifestyle. Since smoking is symbolic of this new freedom, it becomes incorporated inter her lifestyle and she may not be willing to give it up...

Current Female Oriented Advertising

...B&W uses the copy line "Lady be Cool" to advertise Koos filter longs in women's books. The visual is either a contemporary young women against a pastoral, natural gree background, or a plain pack on a green background. The ads have a clean, contemporary appearance which contrasts with the more traditional campaign for Kool King. Copy emphasizes both that extra length means extra coolness and that the appearance is stylishly long and elegant.

...EVE 100 MM Filter & Menthol

Copy lines include "The Lady has Taste" and "Farewell to the Ugly Cigarette - Smoke Pretty. Eve." The visuals show cigarette packs frequently held in a brightly nail-polished hand against a background of flower/plants or in traditional feminine hobby situations...

...The body copy emphasizes that since a woman likes to be surrounded by pretty things, the cigarette she smokes should express her love of pretty tings. And Eve is the first truly feminine cigarette with a pretty tip, a pretty pack and a rich but gentle flavor.

Eve's rationale is that smoking historically has been a male prerogative, and masculine cigarettes look ugly when used by a woman. Therefore, Eve is an attempt to make a cigarette that a feminine woman can feel comfortable and attractive smoking.

This traditional and very feminine approach...is directed to the woman whose life revolves around her role as a women, being pretty, soft, and feminine and gaining fulfillment from acceptably female hobbies. Even the promotion offered, a horoscope, exemplifies women's passivity and lack of control over her own future.

Virginia Slims

The Campaign line "You've come a long way, baby" hit the cigarette market in 1968, just has women's lib was entering the national consciousness. The cigarette is positioned specifically for today's liberated woman with a unique, swinging image...

Rank

1

Company

Lorillard Inc.

Author

Friedman, Valerie (Lorillard Tobacco Co.)

Recipient

Smith, Dick (Lorillard Tobacco Co.)

Type

Memorandum

Subject

target

target market

Target/Women (Target Groups)