In this marketing document prepared for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the writer muses about how RJR can
accelerate sale of its flagship brand Winston to "catch up" to the sales of Marlboro, the runaway brand manufactured
by Philip Morris. Given the young "target market" both manufacturers are after, the writer seems to have hit on
a formula when he states,
"Marlboro's marriage of macho promise with milquetoast delivery, on the other hand, seems a bullseye shot
at young smokers' real desires... "
The document takes on a more sinister tone, though, when it begins discussing the chemical manipulation of
human beings in which the tobacco companies engage:
"A particularly disturbing difference may be something your Human Smoking Behavior people told us about last month.
In laboratory tests with human volunteers, smaller puffs of Marlboro delivered higher levels of nicotine into the
bloodstream, and delivered them more quickly, than Winston."
Further, the writer mentions a hypothesis about the use of "some mysterious, proprietary 'accelerator' from the secret
labs of Philip Morris."
The next passages make crystal clear RJR's direction of engaging in manipulation of nicotine deliveries, and also
the possible use of addiction-enhancing chemicals "like organic acids" * and links those intentions to increasing
sales of their product:
"...Fundamentally, we're not in the cigarette business at all. We're in the pleasure business. Intensifying that
pleasure, in our product itself, is where we must begin. What are the 'pleasure points' we can intensify?...
1. More smoke...
2. Heighten nicotine delivery to optimal -- deliver nicotine 'satisfaction' rapidly and at sufficiently high level...
Possible solutions we've discussed with R&D include:
a.. "Dual delivery" via nose and mouth...
b.. "Decoupling" nicotine from tar, and raising its level...
c.. Using techniques like organic acids or ammoniation to provide our own version of the maybe mythical
"magic bullet" from Philip Morris...
.....If we can capture and convert just 10% of the people who "drift" through Winston in three months, we'll
pick up a share point -- and totally arrest the erosion of the brand!"
* Levulinic acid was an organic acid that RJR found to increase nicotine-binding capacity in the brain by 30-50%.
They subsequently added this acid experimentally to Winston Ultra-light cigarettes.
Read the document yourself:
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company -- 507555896/5909
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Quotes:
Before we ask "how high is up for Winston, we need to look at a less uplifting question: "how low is down" for the
cigarette business?...
...RJR's econometric projections... [are] predicated on an ever-decreasing incidence of smoking, a "constantly shrinking
pie." ...Over twenty five years after the first Surgeon General's report, a very high percentage of those who will quit
have quit. Our hypothesis is that we're getting closer and closer to the nucleus...the "hard core" of committed smokers...
...We're not saying the market won't decline. Our question is how fast and how far...How big would today's market be
if we hadn't invented low tar cigarettes back in the 60's?...Our vision of the future market looks like this: A slightly
shrunken but titanium-hard and impenetrable "collapsar core" of smokers -- resolute, self-indulgent, and largely
indifferent to what other people think...
....Winston's heritage remains hot and harsh...Marlboro's marriage of macho promise with milquetoast delivery, on the
other hand, seems a bullseye shot at young smokers' real desires... Winston doesn't smell as fresh as Marlboro... Marlboro's
physical detailing, from pack design to cigarette itself, seems superior.
A particularly disturbing difference may be something your Human Smoking Behavior people told us about last month. In
laboratory tests with human volunteers, smaller puffs of Marlboro delivered higher levels of nicotine into the bloodstream,
and delivered them more quickly, than Winston.
...Bill Hildebolt discounts the "magic bullet" theory: some mysterious, proprietary "accelerator" from the secret labs of
Philip Morris. Whatever the cause, however, if further testing proves the difference to exist, it could indicate a serious
"satisfaction" deficiency we must fix.
A good level of nicotine delivery is something few smokers consciously notice. But it could be a major factor in why
people stay with a brand...even though they don't know why.
...Could we increase usage among the people who already smoke us, can we turn some of our "drifters" into "settlers,"
not by trying to buy them, but via new conversion-creating product "hooks"?
...This is unquestionably the age of the "Embattled Smoker." In America... societal approval of smoking has plummeted
from 48% in 1973 to 29% in '89. Restrictions assail the smoker from every direction. Governments, employers, restaurants,
hotels, airplanes and taxis, even friends' homes... "Smoking opportunities" are not only fewer and fewer, they're shorter
and shorter---shrinking both in time and space.
The unconscious smoking that supported our business for years is virtually at an end. Smoking is becoming a more conscious,
deliberate act....
...In the face of greater and greater constraints, why don't we provide people more of what they are smoking for, in each of
the fewer opportunities they have to get it? If society's price for continuing to smoking is pain, of whatever kind,
why don't we compensate smokers with more pleasure?
Our challenge isn't more puffs per cigarettes, it's more pleasure per puff!
...Fundamentally, we're not in the cigarette business at all. We're in the pleasure business. Intensifying that pleasure,
in our product itself, is where we must begin. What are the "pleasure points" we can intensify?...
1. More smoke...
2. Heighten nicotine delivery to optimal -- deliver nicotine "satisfaction" rapidly and at sufficiently high level... Possible
solutions we've discussed with R&D include:
a.. "Dual delivery" via nose and mouth...
b.. "Decoupling" nicotine from tar, and raising its level...
c.. Using techniques like organic acids or ammoniation to provide our own version of the maybe mythical "magic bullet"
from Philip Morris...
.....If we can capture and convert just 10% of the people who "drift" through Winston in three months, we'll
pick up a share point -- and totally arrest the erosion of the brand!
Source:
Anne Landman, Regional Program Coordinator & Daily Document List Editor
American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office
Title: Winston 1990+
Company: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
Author: FCB/Leber Katz - LKP Marketing Planning Department
Recipient: R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
Date: 19891218
Site:
Tobacco Documents
Online http://www.tobaccodocuments.org
Page Count: 14
Bates No. 507555896/5909
