The Evolving Cigarette |

The Evolving Cigarette chronicles the evolution of tobacco cigarette designs and packaging over the past century. It focuses on four major topics, 1) manufacturing (cigarette automation, American Tobacco monopoly and break-up), 2) engineering (tobacco blending, flavors, and additives), 3) misconceptions of reduced risk (filters, ventilation, hidden features, low tar), and 4) marketing (line extensions, advertising, products that enable smoking).

Evolving Cigarette Traveling Exhibit

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1870s-1900s Color Lithography

Color lithography of the late 1870s allowed companies to create more attractive package illustrations to better promote their products. By the 1890s magazines carried advertisements for cigarettes, snuff and pipe tobacco. A common marketing device in those days was...

KOOL Beetleboard

Kool Beetleboard Advertising Brown and Williamson and R.J. Reynolds offered VW Beetle owners “a free paint job that dramatically increases the value of their vehicle in most instances.” Drivers received a monthly driver payment and had the opportunity to earn even...

Target Audiences

Target Audiences Advertising is important to cigarette makers who strive to recruit new smokers (usually in their teens), maintain current smokers, and persuade smokers to switch to their brands. Scientific evidence shows that tobacco company advertising and promotion...