Youth and Marketing
The Shaping of an Illusion; Resurrection: How the Cigar Industry Manipulated the Media, Infiltrated Hollywood and Escaped the Government's Watchful Eye Despite the Product's Health Hazards.
Abstract
Baltimore Sun article examines cigar boom, cigar industry manipulation of media to promote product. Describes long-term, subtle public relation campaign in which cigar makers targeted news media, planting news stories and letters to the editor, positioning cigars as status symbol with appeal to women, youth, yuppies and linked with sports glamour. Notes cigars are exempt from: cigarette settlements, Surgeon General's warning, and broadcast ban. Surveys newspaper and magazine stories and finds majority on cigars emphasize glamour, not health risk. States that although cigar companies claim to avoid targeting youth, six million 14-19 year olds reported smoking a cigar in 1995, 1-3% smoking more than 50.
Fields
- Notes
Original document code was 949.
- Company
- Non-Tobacco Company
- Target Market
- Men
- Women
- young adult
- Youth
- Women
- Major Subject
- Advertising and Marketing
- Cigar
- Minor Subject
- Advertising and Marketing -celebrity endorsement
- Advertising and Marketing -strategy
- Cigar -advertising and marketing
- Cigar -consumption
- Cigar -consumption --youth
- Cigar -sales
- Health and Medical Research -health hazards
- Tobacco Industry -marketing policies
- Tobacco Usage Behavior -youth (<18 years old)
- Youth (<18 years old) -advertising and marketing --cigars
- Advertising and Marketing -strategy
- Author
- Klein, Alec
- The, Baltimore Sun
- Brand
- Antonio y Cleopatra
- Cuesta-Rey
- Macanudo
- Cuesta-Rey
Document Images
"campaign aimed at younger adult smokers" in its 1995 annual report to
stockholders.
"The trend is happening, and we are helping it move along," said Warren
Pfaff, executive vioe president of McCaffery Rather Gottlieb & Lane, General
Cigar's advertising agency in New York. "Our role was to carve out a powerful,
The Sun (Baltimore}, January ii, 1998
powerful position when the time was right."
The timing has been right for another audience. Today, women make up 2
percent to 5 percent of the cigar market, a quantum leap from a decade ago when
one-tenth of 1 percent partook.
In its first foray in this field, Consolidated Cigar has planned a tapered
cigar for women - "The Cleopatra." Caribbean Cigar has introduced a line for
women. Like cigarettes before them, cigars have been promoted as totems of
female liberation.
"Women work as hard as men do," said recent cigar convert Lynn Hoyt Davis as
she lighted a cigar, perched in a leather chair at a smoking club in Redondo
Beach, Calif.
Other converts are emerging from unexpected places.
On a parched Saturday morning in the fall of 1996, a burly preacher stood
before a spellbound congregation in Nevada and invited his followers to join him
in prayer.
The Sun (Baltimore}, January Ii, 1998
"Almighty God, we thank you for the gift of the cigar, something you created
for us to enjoy. I We ask you to provide continued growth in this industry."
As the preacher concluded, "Amen," applause broke out in the cavernoms hotel
ballroom, site of Cigar Aficionado magazine's "Big Smoke Las Vegas Weekend."
The clapping of 500 fervent smokers was proof that divine intervention wasn't
necessary.
In this series
Tomorrow: Cigar manufacturers have paid brokers to get celebrities to wield
cigars in movies and television -- stealth marketing that Congress thought it
had stamped out.
Tuesday: Contrary to popular belief, cigars are not a safe alternative to
cigarettes. But cigars have dropped off the regulatory radar screen,
Reprints
A full-color reprint of "The Cigar Caper" series will be available from Sun
Source for $ 7.95 plux tax ($ 8.35 total). To order, call 410-332-6800. Or go
The Sun (Baltimore), January ii, 1998
to SunSpot, The Sun's Web site, at www.sunspot.net/news/.
Pub Date: 1/11/98
GRAPHIC: COLOR PHOTO i, NANINE HARTZEHBUSCH: SUN STAFF PHOTOS, Rebirth of cool:
At the opening of the Havana Club in Baltimore in the spring, Maria Queral of
Lutherville holds the symbol of chic for the '90s.; COLOR PHOTO 2, NANIHE
HARTZENBUSCH: SUN STAFF PHOTOS, Mastery: Nick Reed demonstrates his skill with a
cigar. The 16-year-old son of a doctor and nurse says of smoking, "I just wanted
to figure out why people like this so much."; COLOR PHOTO 3, NANINE
HARTZENBUSCH: SUN STAFF PHOTOS, Spokesman: The campaign was "an abject failure,"
says Norman F. Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America Inc.; COLOR
PHOTO 4, CULBRO CORP. 1995 ANNUAL REPORT, Industry leaders: Edgar M. Cullman Jr.
(left) and his father, Edgar M. Cullman Sr., of General Cigar. They are part of
the family responsible for the creation of another marketing success, the
Marlboro Man.; COLOR PHOTO 5, NANINE HARTZENBUSCH: SUN STAFF PHOTOS, Sampling:
Maria Queral of Lutherville and her brother Servando Llanio of Baltimore sample
smokes at the Havana Club. Today, women make up 2 percent to 5 percent of the
cigar market, as compared with one-tenth of 1 percent a decade ago.; COLOR PHOTO
6, ASSOCIATED PRESS, Wide appeal: President Clinton is among a group of noted
cigar smokers who include such figures as Madonna, Rush Limbaugh, Claudia
Schiffer, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Wayne Gretzky.; PHOTO, EMILY HOLMES: SUN
The Sun (Baltimore), January Ii, 1998
STAFF, Game plan: A 1983 internal memo of the Cigar Association of America Inc.
reveals the industry's plan to use the news media's credibility to boost the
cigar's image and to reverse declining sales.; COLOR REPRODUCTION, HOW CIGARS
APPEAR IN MAGAZINES; GRAPH I, Baltimore Sun Research/LAMONT W. HARVEY: SUN
STAFF, CIGARS AND THE MEDIA; GRAPH 2, Maxwell Consumer Reports and U.S.
Census/LAMONT W. HARVEY: SUN STAFF, Cigar sales in U.S. -- Overall cigar
sales; GRAPH 3, Maxwell Consumer Reports and U.S. Census/LAMONT W. HARVEY: SUN
STAFF, Cigar sales in U.S. -- Premium cigar sales; GRAPH 4, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention 1996/LAMONT W. HARVEY: SUN STAFF, Teenage smokers.
LOAD-DATE: January 18, 1998
