According to a recent New York Times article by Stuart Elliott found at No. 9, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco recently came out with a new Camel box design targeted at high-heeled and fashionable women. The style of the box has increased Camel's sales. Camel No. 9 sounds like a women's fragrance, Chanel No. 19, as well as a romantic song, "Love Potion No. 9". According to the senior marketing director of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, the "9" means "dressed to the nines, putting on your best." Subtle cues are the hot pink fuchsia color and minty teal green outline of the packaging. The slogan is "Light and luscious". In magazines, flowers surround the ad, making it fun and exciting, thus the appeal.
Because Camel is male-focused, Joe Camel, only 30% of women are Camel buyers. This limited their potential because half of adult women are smokers. As a result, Camel has come up with a new marketing strategy. Virginia Slims has always been the largest brand directed at women with the slogan, "You've come a long way, baby." The promotion for the new Camel cigarette box design is done through give aways at nightclubs, distributing coupons, and ads in magazine like Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Vogue, although these magazines have a young reader audience too.
This new advertising campaign will surely impact women smokers who may have been turned off by Joe Camel before, preferring a cigarette brand directed at women, like Virgina Slims. The fancy and pretty packaging, as well as the flowery bright ads, will attract women, since it is a known fact that women are impacted by visual ads with flair that are beautiful or attractive. This draws them in, increasing the sales. This was a smart move for Camel cigarettes, lingering away from the more male dominant name and appealing to women smokers who make up a large segment of young adult/adult smokers. I can only predict a positive impact for Camel.
-Amy
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Camel's new marketing sounds very effective, especially since cigarette smoking has become more taboo and is often considered gross or low-class. Giving a bit of feminitity, class, and style to the packaging and ads will encourage a certain kind of woman to buy them.
It still shocks me that cigarettes are advertized so freely in mainstream magazines. I understand that Vogue and Cosmopolitan are in it to make money but it seems odd since cigarette smoking has become much more socially unnacceptable.
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