With a nod to Chanel No. 5, R.J. Reynolds introduces Camel No. 9, packaged in hot pink, for women

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Advertising
A New Camel Brand Is Dressed to the Nines
By STUART ELLIOTT
Published: February 15, 2007


(Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)
Camel No. 9 cigarettes will come in a package that is hot-pink fuchsia and minty-green teal, with the slogan, “Light and luscious.”

THE next time R. J. Reynolds Tobacco asks smokers to walk a mile for a Camel, watch how many of them are in high heels.

Reynolds, eager to increase the sales of its fast-growing Camel brand among women, is introducing a variety aimed at female smokers. The new variation, Camel No. 9, has a name that evokes a women’s fragrances like Chanel No. 19, as well as a song about romance, “Love Potion No. 9.”

But don’t look for a Jo Camel to join Old Joe the dromedary on Camel packages, displays or posters. Rather, Camel No. 9 signals its intended buyers with subtler cues like its colors, a hot-pink fuchsia and a minty-green teal; its slogan, “Light and luscious”; and the flowers that surround the packs in magazine ads.

For decades, Camel has been a male-focused cigarette; only about 30 percent of Camel buyers are female. By comparison, for competitive brands like Marlboro and Newport, women comprise 40 percent to 50 percent of customers. Almost half of adult smokers are women, so that limited Camel’s potential.

Wall Street analysts praise the introduction of Camel No. 9, in regular and menthol flavors, as a further step by the R. J. Reynolds, a unit of Reynolds American, toward a new marketing strategy....But critics decry the new Camel as yet another effort to single out women for smoking pitches, a tactic they trace back to the 1920s when American Tobacco urged, “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet” to promote Lucky Strike cigarettes.....“More women die of lung cancer than breast cancer, by a wide margin,” (Cheryl G. Healton, president and chief executive of the American Legacy Foundation in Washington) said, yet the tobacco companies still “want to increase their market share among women.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/15/business/media/15adco.html?8dpc

[hlthe2b]

1. I'm sure the breast cancer campaigns will love this...

:sarcasm:
Good heavens, there really is no common sense on Madison Avenure, nor conscience among these corporate jerks..

[RB TexLa]

9. have breast cancer campaigns copyrighted the color pink?

:shrug:

[hlthe2b]

10. I don't know... can you copyright a color?

I doubt it... But clearly pink has become officially associated with the breast cancer prevention movement (and Susan B. Komen's foundation, in particular). I predict a major backlash...

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. Does it come with a matching mini-oxygen tank?

If not, it should.

[soothsayer]

3. Not a smoker, but camel is by far the best tasting cig (you've come

a long way baby, to get camel lung cancer today)

At least they didn't call it 'camel toe'

am I going to get flamed? aiyeee!

[Lerkfish]

4. "So round, so firm, so fully packed"

cigarette companies know how to market.

[Auggie]

6. Especially the Camel brand. Remember Joe Camel?

[SpiralHawk]

5. New matching fragrance: eau de skank

(confession - former skanky smelling smoker here). I'm free, free, free at last !

[wovenpaint]

8. Congratulations

:thumbsup:
It does feel good, doesn't it?
(fellow former smoker)

[quiet.american]

7. "Death becomes her." n/t

[ima_sinnic]

11. anybody who would buy cigarettes on the basis of package color

is a dumb@$$.
Kind of like someone who would apply for a credit card because it is a very "cool-looking" clear one.

[MamaBear]

12. Number nine ... number nine ... number nine ...

El Dorado.

They'll never quit making this sh*t, and people will never stop buying their own death. Jeez.

[gratuitous]

13. Marlboro started off as a "ladies" brand

A few years ago, I was working for another law firm, and we had a case against Philip Morris for a man who died due to Marlboro cigarettes. Unfortunately for our case, he didn't start smoking until he was in the service in Korea, so we couldn't use any of the marketing and advertising that Philip Morris aimed at pre-teens and adolescents, but there was a shitload of it.

In reviewing the history of the Marlboro brand, which is one of the quintessential "tough guy" smokes made famous by the Marlboro Man and images of rugged outdoorsmen doing ruggedly outdoorsy things (like not saying "outdoorsy"), we were startled to find out that Marlboro had begun as a ladies' smoke. For one, it had a filter tip, which was considered effeminate at the time. The first ones had a prohibitively expensive silk wrapping for the filter, soon changed to a silken paper to wrap the filter. The cigarette doubled as a lipstick blotter!

So nice to see tobacco companies undaunted by so much public opposition to their deadly product.

[DeepModem Mom]

14. Interesting! Thanks for posting, gratuitous. nt