Marlboro Man
Big Brother
King Arthur
Santa Claus
Hamlet

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Before a craggy-faced cowboy galloped across the baby boomer television screen as the Marlboro Man, the brand was marketed as a feminine alternative to the harsher cigarettes gents smoked.

In the 1950s, the tobacco industry scrambled to answer critics who claimed smoking caused everything from cancer to yellow teeth. Filters became the rage. Kent raced out the starting gate but stumbled over an asbestos alarm on its filter tip ingredients.

Philip Morris was hot to trot and decided to re-invent the Marlboro brand. The coming-of-age baby boomer market was there for the taking. Bold merchandisers touted it as a masculine smoke compared to other filters, the general idea of which was regarded initially as less than the real thing – cigarettes for wimps.

The Marlboro man became one of the icons of pop culture advertising. The original was a variety of tough-guy characters including cowboys, car mechanics, hunters and race car drivers – often sporting tattoos, before they were “hip” and still conveyed macho gravitas.

The cowboy emerged as the dominant image because, as an advertising guru explained, “in a world that was becoming increasingly complex for the ordinary man, the cowboy represented an antithesis – a man whose environment was simplistic and relatively pressure free. He was his own man in a world he owned.”

The stirring theme song from The Magnificent Seven provided the background music for Marlboro Country. Close your eyes, visualize, and the whole scene will come flooding back.

Or just click here: MARLBORO COWBOY

The campaign worked. By 1972 Marlboro was the best selling cigarette brand in the world.

The symbol returned to haunt Phillip Morris. Three men who appeared as the Marlboro Man cowboy died of lung cancer, thus earning Marlboro cigarettes the nickname “Cowboy Killers.” One became a vocal anti-smoking advocate.

Baby Boomer Trivia Questions

►27 states have banned smoking in all enclosed public places. One of these states has not:

Maryland
Montana
Florida
New Mexico

♫ ♫ What the next line of this hit song recorded by numerous artists?

Sittin’ in the classroom
Thinkin’ it’s a drag
List’nin’ to the teacher
Well just ain’t my bag
Noon bells ring
You know that’s my cue
I’m gonna meet the boys
On floor number two…

► Only one of these celebrities is a non-smoker:

Paula Dean
Snoop Dog
Hugh Grant
Catherine Zeta-Jones

Answers at end of post

Answers

►Florida does not have a ban on smoking in enclosed public places. Maryland is the only state south of the Mason-Dixon line to enact one.

♫ ♫ …Smoking in the boy’s room.

►Hugh Grant is not a smoker.

Catherine Zeta-Jones blowing smoke in kids’ faces

Related Post: Click on→ A BABY BOOMER’S CIGARETTE HISTORY