page_title: Marlboro (cigarette)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Marlboro (cigarette) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Marlboro cigarette in pack. Pentax Optio H90
context_page_description: Marlboro is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA within the United States, and by Philip Morris International outside the United States. Richmond, Virginia, is the location of the largest Marlboro cigarette manufacturing plant. Marlboro is the best-selling cigarette brand in the world since 1972. As of 2017, Marlboro had 40% market share in the United States, more than the next seven brands combined.
context_section_description: In 1846, British tobacconist Phillip Morris opened a shop on Bond Street, London, UK, selling tobacco and rolled cigarettes. After his death from cancer in 1873, his brother Leopold and widow Margaret continued the business, growing it and opening a factory on Great Marlborough Street, London. The company being called Phillip Morris Companies Inc. at the time, the owners chose a simple name for the cigarette: Marlboro.
  Philip Morris opened a New York subsidiary in 1902 to sell many of its cigarette brands. The mark "Marlboro" was registered in the United States in 1908 although no cigarette was marketed under this name until 1923. In 1924, the brand was launched. They were first marketed as "America's luxury cigarette" and were mainly sold in hotels and resorts.
  Around the 1930s, it was starting to be advertised as a women's cigarette, based on the slogan "Mild As May". The name was taken from a street in London where Philip Morris's British factory was located. However, as early as 1885, a brand called "Marlborough" was already being marketed as a "ladies' favorite" by Philip Morris & Co.
  In the 1930s, advertising for the cigarette was primarily based on how ladylike the filter cigarette was, in an attempt to appeal to the mass market. To this end, the filter had a printed red band around it to hide lipstick stains, calling it "Beauty Tips to Keep the Paper from Your Lips".
  Shortly before World War II, the brand's sales stagnated at less than 1% of tobacco sales in the US and was briefly withdrawn from the market. After the war, Camel, Lucky Strike, and Chesterfield were the only common cigarettes.
  After scientists published a major study linking smoking to lung cancer in the 1950s, Philip Morris repositioned Marlboro as a men's cigarette in order to fit a market niche of men who were concerned about lung cancer. At the time, filtered cigarettes were considered safer than unfiltered cigarettes, but had been until that time only marketed to women. Men at the time indicated that while they would consider switching to a filtered cigarette, they were concerned about being seen smoking a cigarette marketed to women.
  Part of Marlboro's rise in market share was its ability to produce "milder, more aromatic, sweeter, and less harsh" cigarettes by adding ammonia to the tobacco. Further usage of diammonium phosphate allowed Marlboro to free base the nicotine in tobacco, allowing for more efficient delivery. Marlboro kept this process secret for many years, as freebasing is the same process used to produce crack cocaine from normal cocaine. Some experts have called the product that Marlboro sold "crack tobacco."
  In the late 1960s, Marlboro "Longhorn 100's" were introduced. Although colour-coded with gold, they were full flavor cigarettes, not lights. In 1972, Marlboro became the best-selling brand of tobacco in the world.
  In order to comply with a 2006 court ruling in United States v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., et al., Philip Morris (and all other cigarette companies) is now prevented from using words such as "Lights", "Ultra-Lights", "Medium", "Mild", or any similar designation that may yield an impression of being safer than regular full flavored cigarettes. Thus Marlboro and other cigarette companies use only color-coding instead; for example, Marlboro Lights are now called Marlboro Gold Pack.
  Philip Morris responded to the popularity of Pall Mall, the number three brand, by pushing Marlboro Special Blends, a lower-priced cigarette.
  In 2013, Philip Morris International introduced "Marlboro 2.0". The pack design was changed; the dark red was replaced with a lighter red, the "Marlboro" and Philip Morris logo became ribbed and transparent, and around 2017 a special "SmartSEAL" was introduced to keep the stored cigarettes fresh for a longer period of time. The Marlboro 2.0 packs are mainly available in Europe and some parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, but not in the United States, Canada, Australia (due to plain packaging), and New Zealand.
  In 2015, Philip Morris announced they would introduce a "Firm Filter" to their Marlboro
caption: Marlboro cigarettes in a pack
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