The Marlboro Man
Marlboro (Philip Morris)1955
The Marlboro Man is a 1955 print and television campaign for Marlboro, created by Leo Burnett, Chicago.
Why it works
The most consequential repositioning in advertising history — studied today as both masterwork and warning. In 1954, Marlboro was a tiny "Mild as May" women's cigarette; Leo Burnett relaunched it in 1955 around the most masculine image in American culture, the cowboy, making the new filter acceptable to men without ever arguing about filters. Sales exploded from 18 million cigarettes in 1954 to over 20 billion within three years, and by the early 1960s the imagery was distilled to the cowboy alone and his mythic home, "Marlboro Country." Ad Age ranked the campaign No. 3 of the 20th century. It is taught as the definitive proof that advertising sells identity, not product attributes — and, given what the product was, as the sharpest ethics case the industry ever produced.
Techniques
- Transfer The cowboy, the most masculine image in American culture, lends his rugged myth to a filter cigarette once sold to women.
- Mascots and characters A recurring cowboy and his mythic Marlboro Country become the brand itself, with no argument about the product needed.
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