The success story of the Marlboro cigarettes brand is still unique today. Around the globe, no brand is sold more often than Marlboro. It can be safely assumed that the reason for this sales hit was not only the aroma of the cigarette, but also the image that was developed for the brand and was able to achieve a high international response among smokers. Even most non-smokers will certainly know Marlboro and the associated imagery. But it all started much more modestly, and both the product and the Marlboro brand have been revised over the decades.
The early years of Marlboro cigarettes. Strictly speaking, it should be said that the early years of the Marlborough, which gave this name Philip Morris, a London tobacco dealer and importer of cigars, in 1854 the cigarettes. It was named after Great Marlborough Street in London, where he also produced other cigarettes, such as the Philip Morris brand, which is also still available today.
In 1902, Philip Morris & Co. Ltd. was founded with a branch in New York. Finally, in 1919, Philip Morris decided to move the company’s headquarters to America. The company settled in Richmond, Virginia, where the production of cigarettes began about 10 years later. Marlboro cigarettes as a cigarette especially for women? Certainly only known to the connoisseurs of the brand, but still true. In 1924, the Marlboro received its current name and was repositioned as a cigarette for women for the first time. It did not yet have a filter, but was still marketed under the claim “mild as May” and advertised as an elegant choice for the ladies’ world. At a time, by the way, when the image in public of smoking women still caused social irritation. In 1930, the product Marlboro was adapted: the cigarette received a short filter.
The brief withdrawal of Marlboro cigarettes. Another little-known detail from the history of the Marlboro: In the years before the Second World War, the brand was less in demand and was even completely withdrawn from the market for some time. “The” cigarette brands of the post-war period were Camel, Chesterfield and of course Lucky Strike, which also became a currency on the German black markets after the war.