The Marlboro Man’s Lasting Legacy

Throughout advertising history, few campaigns have left as marked of an impression on the industry as ‘The Marlboro Man’. Introduced in the 1950s, this iconic campaign has shaped the form, philosophy, and approach of modern-day advertising. I will delve into the profound influence the Marlboro man has made and will offer a critical analysis of the impact of this campaign.

The Birth of ‘The Marlboro Man’

Until the 1970s when cigarette advertising was banned, advertising for cigarettes proved uniquely important. This is largely because cigarette brand loyalty is very high, and advertisers needed to convince people to use their product despite the fact it may eventually kill them (Dawes, 2014). Due to these significant hurdles and necessities, it is unsurprising that the cigarette industry has made some of the major breakthroughs in advertising.

The Marlboro Man was born in an era where filtered cigarettes were symbolic of femininity and Marlboro filtered cigarette sales were low. In a bold attempt to rebrand their cigarettes for independent, rugged, Western men, Leo Burnette ad agency came up with the Marlboro Man.

The campaign featured images of an independent male figures. For example, the cowboy Marlboro Man figure, who was often depicted riding a horse through the American wilderness. This figure embodied American masculinity, individualism, and represented the antithesis of the “feminine” filtered cigarette. This figure of masculine vitality marks the moment when Marlboro became the first ever lifestyle advertisers. Within a year of this Marlboro Man’s debut, Marlboro went from holding just one percent market share to becoming the fourth bestselling brand in America (Shirk, 2015).

The Impact on Advertising Form

Traditional advertising campaigns focused explicitly on highlighting product features. In tabaco advertising, brands often highlighted qualities such as smoothness and texture. Take this Lucky Strike advert (see below) from 1948, where the emphasis is on the quality of the tabaco and the enjoyment of the smoking experience.

The Marlboro Man campaign represented an evolution in the form of advertising whereby instead of highlighting the qualities of the product, it focused on building an association between the brand and a particular lifestyle. They achieved this through the novel technique of storytelling whereby a desirable picture was built around the fictional character of the Marlboro Man.

This campaign represented a remarkable evolution towards the association of a brand to a specific feeling. This type of advertising was revolutionary because it required a real psychological understanding of an audience (Wrzosiński, 2014). Much of today’s advertising strategy revolves around harnessing deep psychological insight to build desirable image, suggesting a real development in advertising strategy from times before the Marlboro Man.

Selling Harmful Messages

There are several moral concerns related to the impact of the Marlboro Man campaign. Evidence released in 1954 from the American Cancer Society showed that cigarettes cause cancer (Mendes, 2014). Despite this, the campaign falsely depicted the Marlboro Man as a person of vitality and health in a deliberate attempt to curb the association of cigarettes and illness.

The increase of cigarette sales after this would have been detrimental to the health of many. It is even known that four out of the five Marlboro Men actors died of smoking related illnesses (Pearce, 2014). This is a standard for advertising that is best left in the past and is reflective of an American capitalist society that values profit above all else.

As the Marlboro Man Campaign revealed, lifestyle advertising can be extremely effective, therefore, it is vitally important to protect viewers from the harmful effects of certain products. It can be argued that by manipulating people’s desires, persuasive advertising undermines the autonomy of consumers in morally questionable ways (Aylsworth, 2020).

Fortunately, today advertising for cigarettes is banned, however, many adverts still mislead consumers on the benefits of certain products or fail to adequately warn consumers of the health consequences of certain food products. With health issues such as child obesity being a global health concern in, it is perhaps more necessary than ever to limit overly persuasive advertising for certain unhealthy products (Naderer, 2020).

Conclusion

The Marlboro Man campaign has had a profound effect on the form adverts now take. The vast majority of adverts today use aspects of lifestyle advertising, focus less on the product itself and use inventive storytelling to sell a feeling. Associating a product with distinct emotions and tapping deeper into human psychology has been one of the greatest leaps in the history of advertising. However, the Marlboro Man campaign also embodies negative aspects of advertising that are still prominent today, such as using deceiving techniques to promote unhealthy habits.

Sources

Aylsworth, T. (2020). Autonomy and manipulation: Refining the argument against persuasive advertising. Journal of Business Ethics. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04590-6.

Dawes, J. (2014). Cigarette brand loyalty and purchase patterns: An examination using US consumer panel data. Journal of Business Research, 67(9), pp.1933–1943. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2013.11.014.

Mendes, E. (2014). The study that helped spur the U.S. stop-smoking movement. [online] Available at: https://www.cancer.org/research/acs-research-news/the-study-that-helped-spur-the-us-stop-smoking-movement.html.

Naderer, B. (2020). Advertising unhealthy food to children: On the importance of regulations, parenting styles, and media literacy. Current Addiction Reports, 8. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s40429-020-00348-2.

Pearce, M. (2018). At least four Marlboro Men have died of smoking-related diseases. Los Angeles Times. [online] Available at: https://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-marlboro-men-20140127-story.html [Accessed 18 Dec. 2018].

Shirk, A. (2015). The real marlboro man. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/the-real-marlboro-man/385447/.

Wrzosiński, P. (2014). A marlboro man story. [online] K-Message. Available at: https://k-message.com/2014/01/29/marlboro-man-story/ [Accessed 14 Nov. 2023].