Shock of the old: 11 vintage, vaginal and downright dangerous cigarette ads

It’s a stretch now to imagine a time when cigarette packets weren’t plastered with tracheotomies and rotten toes, and smoking was something you did in offices, homes and restaurants, instead of a shameful act, furtively executed in a plastic vivarium at the airport or in a urine-scented gap between two wheelie bins, while passersby stare at you in open disgust.

But smoking used to be glamorous, kids, and that was at least partly down to the magic of advertising. Tobacco might be a definite Bad Thing, but trying to persuade people to put a burning paper tube of dangerous acrid leaves in their mouths has led to some extraordinary feats of creativity.

It was easier back when tobacco manufacturers could claim their product was healthy and relaxing, or at least not actively killing people (props, though, to James I, who presciently called smoking “a custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs” in 1604). The earliest print ads, starting from the 1790s, were quite plain, but once colour lithography dropped in the 1870s, things went wild. Cards, used to stiffen packets, became a lure for consumers keen to ogle images of actresses (tobacco manufacturer Washington Duke expressed concern at the use of “lascivious photographs” to sell his product in 1894), or to indulge in the proto-Pokémon hobby of collecting pics of baseball players, boats and, er, pigeons.

In addition to pigeons, as the industry got into its stride, cigarette ads associated their product with all the good, desirable stuff you would expect: youth and fun, music and movies and being thin. There’s a certain bleak honesty to the Lucky Strike campaigns that suggested having a fag when you were tempted to eat. “It’s toasted,” they crowed, as if that meant you could butter it like a crumpet.

Then there’s the really out-there stuff. The regular association of smoking and sport is pretty baffling, as is the idea of sparking up being medically recommended, or at least sanctioned (achieved mainly through flattery and free fags for doctors). I find the idea that The Flintstones was sponsored by Winston cigarettes mindblowing: episodes ended with Fred lighting Wilma’s Winston. But weirder even than that was the ad in which Kool cigarettes’ mascot, a penguin, was “illustrated as a calming arbitrator between mascots of the two competing political parties” in the 1936 presidential elections (does anyone have the penguin’s number?).

Time to make like James I and get judgmental about lascivious photographs and unlikely animals being used to promote the “filthie smoake”. Let’s go.

Cool Smoke, 1869

An impressively weird advert, the premise for which is presumably the suggestion of coldness in the name Cool Smoke. It looks like the dreams I have when I finally drop off at 5am after a sleepless night, except one of the toothy seals would be my accountant. Speaking of, what are the seals standing next to? Hibachi grills, xylophones? Bonus points for the sassy polar bear at the back, in its lane and refusing to be drawn into this whole scenario.

Tobacco man, c1887

This is next-level commitment to smoking. Oh, you like smoking? Well, are you made of leaf tobacco, have cigars for arms and cigarette legs, and are you also puffing on a cigar? Your move, David Hockney.

Pet cigarettes, late 19th century

There are a surprising number of cigarette ads featuring babies, children and animals; they were supposed to make smoking look family-friendly and wholesome, the kind of thing ladies might enjoy. My favourite in this category features a stork nonchalantly holding a bundled baby with one foot, with a cigarette in its beak, captioned: “Tell them to wait another 15 minutes.” Which brings me to my main objection to this ad: why call your product Pet cigarettes and not show the pets smoking? This is precisely the kind of thing that gave the industry a bad name.

Cholera cigarettes, 1892

Listen, I’m no marketing expert but I’m not sure I would have made block capitals “CHOLERA” the largest word by far on my advert for well, anything (except cholera). Tinctures of tobacco were among the many useless 19th-century remedies for cholera. Would smoking help? Assuredly not. Was it no worse than many other treatments? Probably.

Santa, 1919

You better watch out; you better not cry. I mean it, really, don’t: have you seen this Santa? He’s absolutely terrifying, teeth clamped around that cigarette holder (to avoid beard singeing?), semaphoring barely suppressed rage. US Turkish tobacco firm Murad produced cracking ads: another Santa one has him on a fag break, slumped against a chimney, and there’s a baffling but brilliant woman riding a giant tortoise that would definitely have persuaded me to start smoking.

Physicians, 1930

Tobacco companies loved a man in a white coat saying smoking was good for you, ideally with authoritative-looking numbers to back it up. Lucky Strike were the first: the “20,679 physicians say Luckies are less irritating” claim was based on how doctors answered an “arbitrary survey question” (the number varied between campaigns). Philip Morris challenged this with its own “research” and “aggressive pursuit of physicians” and Reynolds went with: “More doctors smoke Camel than any other cigarette.” I’ve watched enough Grey’s Anatomy to know that just because a doctor does something, it doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

Celebrity cigarette ads

Whoever your matinee idol was, they probably smoked; golden-age studios must have been foul, yellow, reeking pits and not remotely glamorous. All of Hollywood seems to have taken the big-tobacco dollar, from Claudette Colbert posing as Cleopatra to, er, Crocodile Dundee (Paul Hogan), plus musicians, comedians and TV stars. The truly shocking thing here is the thought that wanting to be like Ronald Reagan could make anyone buy anything.

Tennis

This is what peak performance looks like: a graceful, nicotine-assisted dive for the net. Ads featured boxing, football and basketball stars mid-fag; Camel even got sportsmen and women to say their cigarettes “don’t get your wind”. There was also cigarette advertising at the Olympics: I like this much-medalled chap with a fag casually drooping from his bottom lip.

Marlboro Man

Marlboro was originally marketed as a women’s cigarette (back when filters were considered “sissy”), but its rugged cowboy-hat-wearing, strong, silent Man has been called “one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time”. It’s supposed to have heralded the birth of “lifestyle” marketing, because apparently people crave a life of solitary, horse-based staring (actually, that does sound great). Robert Norris, the most famous Marlboro Man, didn’t smoke, but he did adopt an elephant, pleasingly.

Winchester

Ah, the 70s: a gun-inspired pose, enormous shades, a sexy ’tache and sexism to turn you into the head-exploding emoji. Historically, cigarettes were a symbol of women’s liberation: “Group of girls puff at cigarettes as a gesture of freedom,” read the headline on a report of a 1929 feminist rally, and even delicate lady brand Virginia Slims used the vaguely “yass girl” slogan “You’ve come a long way, baby”. Winchesters are not just for “leathery, liberated ladies” but even “women with bras and bridges to burn”. But then how will this man still feel comfortable smoking them? It’s a gender politics minefield!

Silk Cut, 2002

Prevented from saying cigarettes were good for you, sexy or supportive of athletic performance, ad agencies had to get more creative. Saatchi’s minimalist Silk Cut ads – inspired by artist Lucio Fontana’s slashed canvases and distinctly vaginal – were considered the absolute pinnacle of the genre and probably helped boost sales for decades. This 2002 fat lady sings riff was the last ever, before tobacco advertising was finally banned in the UK.

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