A vintage Benson & Hedge's ad evokes a cheekier (but no less deadly) era of cigarette marketing

Sometimes an ad gets just a little too truthful for its own good.  By the time this 1972 full-pager for Benson & Hedges 100’s ran in Life magazine, smoking was widely understood to be associated with a range of serious diseases. So, sure, let’s equate using our product to jumping out of a plane.  Bought by Philip Morris in 1958, Benson & Hedges is a British brand and still a subsidiary of the American conglomerate Philip Morris International. This ad was part of a larger “favorite cigarette break” campaign that leaned into the fact that Benson & Hedges offered longer cigarettes at the same price point, so people kept accidentally snapping the suckers in two. “Nobody had ever mutilated a cigarette before in American advertising—cigarettes, like automobiles, had always been treated with reverent respect by their manufacturers,” Mad Woman Mary Wells Lawrence wrote in her 2002 memoir “A Big Life (In Advertising).”  “Anything anti-establishment seemed smart in the mid-’60s, so our advertising made Benson & Hedges wildly hip and cool and the cigarette to be seen with.” (Lawrence, the first female CEO listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is still alive at 91. Must not have been a smoker.) But the times? They are a-changin’. Benson & Hedges parent PMI was in the news last week as merger talks between it and Altria Group, another American purveyor of cancer, broke down. Altria itself holds a minority stake in Juul Labs, the embattled e-cigarette maker... Continue reading at 'Advertising Age'

[ Advertising Age | 2019-09-30 09:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #merger talks #minority stake #recent months #memoir

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Why Thinking Same-Language Markets are Uniform is a Mistake

Addressing the differences between the various international book markets is one of the missions we have here at Publishing Perspectives. It's perhaps the key reason we exist. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-11-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Emerging Markets are Key to Penguin Random House Merger

Overlooked in the much of the discussion of the Penguin Random House merger is just how important Latin America, China and India are to the deal. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Rights Market in China is Booming, But Complicated

At Frankfurt's annual Rights Directors Meeting, Wuping Zhao told the audience that Chinese publishers acquired rights to 15,592 foreign titles in 2011, up from just 1,664 in 1995. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-10-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Downsized, Not Dead

In addition to Free Press coming under the new S&S Publishing Group, the restructuring moved Touchstone from the responsibility of Levin to the Scribner group under Susan Moldow, while the Atria Publishing group added Howard Books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ad revenue falls again at The New York Times Co.

Ad revenue at The New York Times Co. declined 8.9% in the third quarter from the quarter a year earlier as print ad revenue dropped 10.9% and digital ad revenue slipped 2.2%, the company said today. Circulation revenue, however, increased 7.4% on the strength of growing digital subscriptions and... Continue reading at Crains New York

[ Crains New York | 2012-10-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Springer CEO Says "Free Beer" Era for Internet Ending

(Reuters) - Germany's largest newspaper publisher will introduce a paywall for its flagship national daily Die Welt by the end of this year and is confident competitors will follow suit, Axel Springer Chief Executive Mathias Doepfner said. In an ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher

[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-10-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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E-books Share of Canadian Market Pegged at 16%

BookNet Canada’s first survey of where Canadians buy books and what types of books they buy found that about 16% of purchases in the first half of 2012 were of ebooks, while paperback remained the most popular format, with a 57% share. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Erotica sales surge, but markets continue to fall

Fifty Shades of Grey has sold more than 28 million physical copies around the world, though... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sharethrough Grabs $5 Million in Funding for Native Ad Push

Sharethrough founder and CEO Dan Greenberg is one of the more vocal evangelists of the native advertising talk that has recently bubbled up. While native advertising isn’t an easy sell to media buyers who typically prefer traditional buying methods, the online video advertising startup has grown... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2012-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Frankfurt Book Fair: ‘a new era dawns’

Publishers are looking to move beyond the “smoke screen” of erotica as the Frankfurt... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon market share ‘increases dramatically after Kindle buy’

Amazon's market share of book sales significantly increases once a customer buys a Kindle... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-10-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Column: A Tumblr Ad Network? Why Not?

As one bounces from panel to panel during Advertising Week collecting lanyards, it’s hard not to notice that the digital advertising world is a bit defensive. While the medium’s share of the ad revenue pie continues to grow, the Web continues to pull in more than its fair share of direct... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2012-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hearst Reboots Mobile Mag Sites in Ad Push

There’s no question about it­—mobile traffic is booming as people spend more time hunched over their little screens. For magazines, it represents an opportunity to capture more readers and try to convert them to paying ones. But advertising on small screens hasn’t kept up. Research by Flurry... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2012-10-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Morris Publishing Creating New Digital Marketing Division

Morris Publishing Group is establishing a partnership with the local digital marketing team of magazine and newspaper publishing firm Hearst. Morris announced today that it reached an agreement with LocalEdge, a Hearst Media Services company, to re ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher

[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-09-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sharethrough Promises Video Ads That Look Like Content

The social video firm Sharethrough wants to help brands run video ads that don't look like video ads. The company, which claims to be able to help advertisers get their ads viewed all over the Web through placements within editorial content rather than paid ad placements (like pre-rolls), has... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2012-09-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Comixology Drives the E-comics Market

Comixology, a digital comics distributor and marketplace, marks its fifth anniversary this year as it emerges as the clear leader in the digital comics space. The company’s Guided View technology, a much imitated function on its Comics by Comixology app, which allows readers to read digital... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-09-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Orion Children's Books signs another Deadly title

Orion Children's Books has acquired a new title by wildlife expert and adventurer, Steve... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Flipboard Looks to Elevate Tablet Ads

After crossing the 20 million user threshold last week, On Friday, the social magazine Flipboard is looking to capture the imagination of brands by elevating tablet advertising. To that end, Flipboard has unveiled a new digital magazine-like ad treatment for Levi's, which blends elements of... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2012-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Android Tablet Market Share Shaky According To Google's Own Stats

The Android OS may dominate the smartphone market, but figures released by Google tell a different story on the tablet front. Stats from Google Play, Google's one-stop shop for apps, movies, books and music, show that, while normal-sized devices - ie phones - account for 86 per cent of... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2012-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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US sales plunge most in biggest markets

The top US regional book markets have seen print sales drop year on year at a far greater rate... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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