Tobacco: Please Hold This Magazine A Little Further Away

Until recently, an extra six-tenths of an inch was important mostly to carpenters, seamstresses and surgeons. Now, however, that fractional distance has become an $800 million-a-year consideration to the U.S. tobacco industry. Six-tenths of an inch is the difference in length between king-size cigarettes and the 100-mm. size, the hottest new item in the tobacco business. Estimates are that the 100-mms. will get 8% to 10% of the $8 billion cigarette market this year v. only 2% last year, when they were first introduced.

Pall Mall pioneered the popular-price "luxury-length cigarette" in March 1966, and was followed last fall by Benson & Hedges. The two caught on so well that other companies that had been considering the longer cigarettes rushed their brands into distribution. Along with Pall Mall, the American Tobacco Co. brought out Colony in the 100-mm. length; American is now test-marketing Tareyton, Lucky Strike and Fifty Fifty in that size. P. Lorillard Co. introduced 100-mm. Spring and York and is testing its best-selling Kent in the supersize. Liggett & Myers now has menthol L & Ms in the longer length. R. J. Reynolds has a 100-mm. Winston in menthol and nonmenthol; they accounted for much of the company's 3.9% increase in first-quarter sales.

Apologetic Approach. The longies have been pushed forward by a spritely $10 million campaign launched for Phillip Morris' Benson & Hedges by the hot new advertising agency, Wells, Rich, Greene. Adopting the apologetic approach to advertising that worked so well for Volkswagen and Avis Rent A Car, Benson & Hedges ads point out the difficulties of smoking a 100-mm. cigarette. They burn beards, get crushed in cigarette cases, smashed in elevator doors, mashed against closed car windows, and one ad warns: "Please hold this magazine a little further away if you're smoking Benson & Hedges 100s." On the other hand, "You'll never have to worry about lighting your nose." And Benson & Hedges 100s offer "three puffs, four puffs, maybe five puffs longer than king size—depending upon how you puff." As a result, Benson & Hedges have edged ahead of Pall Mall as the biggest 100-mm. seller, according to John C. Maxwell Jr., a Manhattan analyst whose statistics on cigarette consumption are the industry's most expert.

Even though tobacco men predict that the 100s will continue to account lor a growing share of market, one problem must be solved that not even Wells, Rich, Greene cares to make light of. Without a converter that costs $50, the longer size does not fit into 900 000 vending machines, from which 17% of all cigarettes are sold. Vending-machine owners so far are not eager to spend on conversions until they are certain the 100s are not a fast-burning fad.