"It's Toasted!"

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting at my barren desk on my laptop, a Cherry Limeade Waterloo sparkling water to drink, and some old music in my Sennheiser’s

I’ve been rewatching Mad Men lately

Gettin’ in that real Don Draper mood.

You know, without all the alcohol abuse and empty womanizing (I don’t drink)

Going through the first season this week, and my interest was piqued by the company Lucky Strike.

I’ve always heard about them, both in the show and real life.

See, I grew up in a family of smokers.

I was the black sheep because I didn’t smoke.

Their advertising methods and strategy were incredible:

In 1917, they coined the phrase “It’s Toasted!” to describe their flavor from manufacturing. Turns out, Camel (who are also still around), decided to counter this campaign by saying their cigarettes were “fresh” and never parched or toasted.

By the 1920’s, they were marketing the product as toasted for flavor, and a useful weight loss tool for women.

“Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet”

Are you ready for their biggest marketing tactic though?

In 1934, Lucky Strike (then owned by American Tobacco Company) hired a man named Edward Bernays to deal with women’s apparent reluctance to buy the brand because the color of the packaging conflicted with the fashion of the day.

When the head of American Tobacco Company refused because of the money already spent on advertising, Bernays just decided to make green fashionable again.

You heard that right.

He decided that instead of continuing to fight for the change to packaging, he was going to bring a color BACK to popularity!

Want to know something crazier?

It worked.

He hosted a “Green Ball” at the famous Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York (the place Gen. Douglas MacArthur lived for the final decade of his life) where famous socialites would attend wearing green dresses and accessories and “intellectuals” would give fancy talks on the theme of green.

They didn’t change the packaging to white until 1942 (8 years later), with ANOTHER marketing tactic used to explain the change.

“Lucky Strike Green has gone to war”

I’m legitimately amazed at their psychological strategies to market something so common.

Practically everyone smoked back then, and there was a good amount of competition for each brand competing.

The strategies they used worked though, and they started becoming one of the premier brands of cigarettes.

For a long time too.

They still put the slogan “It’s Toasted!” (along with L.S/M.F.T) on their packaging to this day, although it’s less prominent than it used to be.

Even though the stigma around cigarettes has increased to the point of practically deleting the idea of smoking from popular consciousness, Lucky Strike is a memorable story.

When they were on top of the world, they kept it remarkably simple:

• Their white packaging has practically gone unchanged in the 80+ years it’s been around (Familiarity)

• They’ve provided a consistent product the entire time (and apparently still do)

• Their marketing strategy changed with the times, but kept the essential message the same - “Our cigarettes taste better than the other brands”

There’s some quick lessons in here —

1) Don’t change your brand. Find one you like and settle on it. Lucky Strike has had the same name and mission for over 120 years.

2) Consistency is the game. They’ve literally made the same product for over a century. Find the sweet spot through ruthless testing and stick with it.

3) Eyeballs are EVERYTHING. They made the same product as their competitors, they just positioned themselves as unique and different by framing their product as such. Their marketing is what set them apart from the rest.

Anyway, thought you’d find this interesting.

Back to Mad Men.

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(P.S. Philip Morris died of lung cancer. Go figure)