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Cigarette Smoking for Weight Loss is

History of Cigarette Smoking for Weight Loss in Advertising

It was not always socially acceptable for women to smoke cigarettes or use tobacco in public. However, over the course of about fifty years, the tobacco industry would change societal attitudes through the conduits of advertising and public relations, transforming tobacco use into a desirable pastime for female consumer in both the United States and abroad.

Pre-1920

Prior to the 1920s, smoking was largely a male pastime and was thought of as a taboo act for women to participate in. During the 19th century, smoking and cigarettes were commonly associated with loose morals and sexual promiscuity. A common prop in Victorian erotic pornography, cigarettes even came to be thought of as an occupational prop of prostitutes and sex workers. Even into the early 20th century, women faced possible arrest if they were caught smoking public.

1920-1968

During the first decade of the twentieth century, women would begin experience upward socioeconomic mobility with the American women’s rights movement as they gained new civil liberties. By the outbreak of World War I, as they experienced growing responsibility and freedom on the home front, an increasing number of women were using cigarettes as a tool to challenge traditional ideas about female behavior. However, it would ultimately be the tobacco industry’s powerful marketing influence that would turn the cigarette from a social liability into an accepted and desirable commodity for women to openly indulge in. However, many question whether or not the cigarette would have become so ubiquitous among women if the tobacco industry had not seized on the liberating social climate of the 1920s and 30s to exploit the ideas of emancipation and power in order to recruit the untapped female market.

Targeting Women's Waistlines

The President of the American Tobacco Company, Percival Hill, was one of the first tobacco executives to seek out the women’s market. Noting the 1920s penchant for bobbed hair cuts, short skirts and, perhaps most importantly, slender figures, Mr. Hill saw the potential in selling cigarettes as an appetite suppressant so that women could achieve the decade’s enviably small waistlines.

"Reach for a Lucky"

Created by Albert Lasker for Mr. Hill and Lucky Strike, the “Reach for a Lucky” campaign is one of the most successful, albeit controversial advertising campaigns in the history of modern advertising. Inspired by other campaigns that offered male consumers a reason why they should smoke a given brand (i.e. the Lucky Strike “It’s Toasted” campaign), Lasker sought to give the female market a reason to smoke as well.

Borrowing from the 19th century slogan of Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, “Reach for a Vegetable,” that was marketed towards women for the alleviation of menstrual discomfort, Lasker and Lucky Strike launched the “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet” campaign in 1925, followed by “For a Slender Figure—Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet” in 1928. The print advertisement was disseminated by Edward Bernays throughout the fashion industry in numerous fashion magazines and daily newspapers featuring slender Parisian models and proclaiming the dangers of sugar consumption. Famously, Amelia Earhart would also serve as a spokeswoman for the “Reach for a Lucky” campaign.

Early on, the print advertisements simply featured an attractive woman with any of the variations of the slogan above or underneath her, accompanied by a rendering of the Lucky Strike Box. Later, the advertisements would make a more pointed statement about weight gain, featuring either a man or a woman in profile view with his or her noticeably fatter shadow silhouette behind. While these early advertisements would focus on both men and women, later variations would target women specifically.

The "Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet" print advertisement from 1925.

"Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet" print advertisement from 1925.

In The Cigarette Century, Allen Brandt explains that the campaign was revolutionary in its pointed targeting of female consumers as well as in its aggressive marketing strategy that posited it in direct opposition with candy manufacturers. Shortly after the campaign was released, the National Confectioners Association fired back at Lucky Strike, threatening legal action and publishing anti-cigarette literature that asserted the importance of candy in a balanced, healthy diet. The dispute between Lucky Strike and the National Confectioners Association ultimately drew the attention of the Federal Trade Commission who ordered Lucky Strike to “relinquish all dietary claims for Luckies” in its advertising.

Importantly, this campaign would serve to create an significant association between cigarettes and the feminine values of style, beauty and slimness. Moreover, Allen Brandt writes that the campaign ultimately “promoted a product and a behavior that…possessed specific and appealing social meanings of glamour, beauty, autonomy, and equality” that would come to be synonymous in future cigarette advertising campaigns targeting female consumers. Lucky Strike’s message was highly effective, raising the company’s market share by more than 200% and making it the most profitable cigarette brand for two years running.

"Torches of Freedom"

After the “Reach for a Lucky Campaign,” Lucky Strike sought to forever change smoking taboos by encouraging women to smoke openly in public. In an infamous publicity stunt, Edward Bernays hired several young, attractive women to march in the Easter Sunday parade in New York brandishing their “torches of freedom”—their Lucky Strike cigarettes. While this campaign did not market cigarettes as weight loss devices, it set the precedent for the new trends in niche marketing that would come to shape the future ways in which the industry would posit new types of cigarettes as weight loss aids. Moreover, it would forever change the public’s thoughts on women smoking, transforming the act from a transgressive one into a normalized feminine behavior.

1968-Present

In 1964, the Surgeon General of the United States released the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee Report on Smoking and Health. This report lead to the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act in 1965, which would mandate that all cigarette packs display warning labels and would change the ways that the tobacco industry would reach consumers via advertising. In April 1964, with Federal Trade Commission statutes pending, the tobacco industry would take on a program of self-regulation in its advertising. This program would become known as the Cigarette Advertising Code, and as Allen Brandt explains, the program:

promised to ban all cigarette advertising aimed at those under twenty-one; to ban all unproven health claims; and to ban the ‘virility’ theme. It also assured that models under twenty-five years of age would not be used in tobacco ads, nor would testimonials by entertainers or athletes be allowed. Finally, the code prohibited ads depicting smoking as ‘essential’ to social prominence, distinction, success or sexual attraction.'

With these regulations in place, the tobacco industry could no longer directly market cigarettes to women as weight loss aids like they had in the past. Rather, they would come to rely upon more subversive forms of marketing to target women’s concerns with weight management.

Virginia Slims

A contemporary package of Virginia Slims Cigarettes.

A box of Virginia Slims.

In 1968, shortly after the enactment of the Cigarette Advertising Code, Philip Morris introduced a new brand of cigarettes called Virginia Slims. Following in the footsteps of Lucky Strike, Virginia Slims were marketed specifically to young, affluent and independent women with the tagline “You’ve Come a Long Way Baby,” referencing the history of women’s liberation. With a colorful, pastel package and female-oriented print advertising featuring beautiful and elegant women, Philip Morris sought to create a cigarette that embodied women’s concerns with glamour, style and body image. Moreover, the brand created rift in the market that differentiated between men’s and women’s cigarettes.

While Federal Trade Commission regulations prohibited brands from claiming any health benefits like weight loss, Virginia Slims appeal to women’s concerns with aesthetic slimness with their elongated shape and narrow circumference. While traditional cigarettes are 84mm in length, Virginia Slims come in both 100 and 120mm lengths that give the cigarette a more dainty or elegant appearance. Moreover, with a 23mm circumference, slim cigarettes are said to produce less smoke than traditional cigarettes.

Virginia Slims and Athleticism

A Poster for the Virginia Slims World Championship Series.

A poster for the Virginia Slims World Championship series.

Cigarettes have a long tradition of being coupled with athletics, health and fitness. As early as the mid-to-late 19th century, Bull Durham cigarettes were the official sponsors of professional baseball, horse racing and golf, and by the 1950s, Camel commonly used sports imagery in their print advertisements.

Thus, it was not unheard of when Virginia Slims sponsored the Women’s Tennis Association in 1970, then known as the “Virginia Slims Circuit.” With this prominent sponsorship came a whole slue of advertisements that featured tennis greats like Billie Jean King and Rosemary Casals alongside the Virginia Slims logo.

Other Virginia Slims advertisements feature slender women in varying states of activity (dancing, running, ice skating, etc.) thusly promoting a general attitude of health and fitness.

Conclusion

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