My last week’s blog was about the advertisement of Heineken beer so I thought that it might be interesting to relate it to another industry, which also has been around for hundreds of years … the tobacco industry. I hope that you don’t get me wrong now and think that I am an alcoholic and heavy smoker; in fact I don’t smoke at all and I do enjoy a beer once in a while.
Both the alcohol and the tobacco industry rely heavily on their marketing strategies. Those strategies are not always free of flaws since they have to match certain lawful and ethical criteria. However both have a common advantage in their favour: the human taste. The human perception is mainly generated through our senses so our mind has the ability to form meaningful images of our environment.
Marlboro is probably among the most famous brands worldwide and is widely known for its cigarette taste and its typical cowboy ads. So what is it exactly that makes those ads so effective? They try to use this particular human brain outlet to make a connection between the cigarettes’ taste and a desired emotional state, which is being triggered by the cigarettes’ ingredients. It is interesting that the marketing strategy has not significantly changed over the past 50 years. The ad’s setting, usually a cowboy in the plains, is designed to release a feeling about limitless freedom. So the connection between smoking a cigarette and the desired outcome (benefits from smoking) is a key factor in Marlboro’s promotion strategy. Even though smoking cigarettes is highly addicting, Marlboro or the tobacco industry in general tries to reach its customers by simply addressing their unconscious desires.
After all there is so much more to say about those ads but I think it mostly depends on the customer’s value of benefits, which is highly influenced by perceptual taste.