Marlboro Man

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For the U.S. Iraq War soldier in the iconic photograph, see James Blake Miller.

For the movie including the same title see, see Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man.

The Marlboro Man is (or in many areas was - see below) part of a tobacco advertising campaign for Marlboro cigarettes from 1954 to 1999 in the United States. The Marlboro Man was first conceived by Leo Burnett in 1954. The image involves a rugged cowboy or cowboys, in nature with only a cigarette. The ads were originally conceived as a way to popularize filtered cigarettes, which at the time were considered feminine.

The Marlboro ad campaign, created by Leo Burnett Worldwide, is said to be one of the most brilliant ad campaigns of all time. It transformed a feminine campaign, with the slogan 'Mild as May', into one that was masculine, in a matter of months. Although there were many Marlboro Men, the cowboy proved to be the most popular. This led to the 'Marlboro Cowboy' and 'Marlboro Country' campaigns.

Actor and author William Thourlby is said to have been the first Marlboro Man. The models who portrayed the Marlboro Man were New York Giants Quarterback Charley Conerly, New York Giants Defensive Back Jim Patton, Darrell Winfield, Dick Hammer, Brad Johnson, Bill Dutra, Dean Myers, Robert Norris, Wayne McLaren, David McLean, Buster Hobbs and Tom Mattox. Two of them, McLaren and McLean, died of lung cancer.

George Lazenby (who played James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service) was the European Marlboro Man.^[1]

In October 2006, Allan Lazar, Dan Karlan and Jeremy Slater listed The Marlboro Man as #1 in their book 'The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived'.^[2]

1 Origin of the Marlboro Man
2 Controversy
3 Decline
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Origin of the Marlboro Man

Philip Morris & Co. (now Altria) had originally introduced the Marlboro brand as a woman's cigarette in 1924. In the years following World War II, Advertising executive Leo Burnett was looking for a new image with which to reinvent Philip Morris's Marlboro brand. Burnett's inspiration for the exceedingly masculine "Marlboro Man" icon came in 1949 from an issue of LIFE magazine, where the photograph (shot by Leonard McCombe) and story of Texas cowboy Clarence Hailey Long caught his attention.^[3]

There are also claims that the original idea for the Marlboro Man came from the Chase Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico; it is said that, for this reason, on all pictures of 'The Man' there is a heart brand (The Chase Brand) on his chaps and his horse. The origin and validity of this claim is unknown.

[edit] Controversy

Two men who appeared in Marlboro advertisements - Wayne McLaren and David McLean - died of lung cancer, thus earning Marlboro cigarettes, specifically Marlboro Reds, the nickname "Cowboy killers".^[4] McLaren testified in favor of anti-smoking legislation before his death at the age of 51. During the time of McLaren's anti-smoking activism, Philip Morris denied that McLaren ever appeared in a Marlboro ad, a position it later amended to maintaining that while he did appear in ads, he was not the Marlboro Man. McLean died at age 73.^[5]^[6]

[edit] Decline

In many countries, the Marlboro Man is a figure of the past due to increasing pressure on tobacco advertising for health reasons, especially where the practice of smoking appears to be celebrated or glorified. The deaths described above may also have made it more difficult to use the campaign without attracting negative comment. The image continued until recently at least in countries such as Germany and the Czech Republic^[7].

"Death In the West" a Thames Television documentary,^[8] was an exposé of the cigarette industry centered around the myth of the Marlboro Man that aired on British television in 1976. Phillip Morris sued the filmmakers and in a 1979 secret settlement all copies were suppressed. In 1983, Professor Stanton A. Glantz released the film and San Francisco, California's KRON aired the documentary in 1982. Since then it has been seen around the world.