Advertising in the Fifties - 'Mad Men' Ain't just Blowin' Smoke

Did advertisers in the Fifties even think about consumer demographics? This ad proves they did not – I mean, The Flintstones was a kid’s cartoon, wasn’t it?



Are kids supposed to care that “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should”? You can picture the scene in ‘Mad Men’ (or on 50s Madison Avenue in reality) – the advertising weasels barking “kids are as good a customer as any! At worst, we’ll put it in their head that Winston is the way to go! At best, we get ‘em smoking Winston right now. Pack a day!!”

Of course, Camel Cigarettes had a cartoon as its mascot (remember “Joe Camel”?). Camel Cigarettes also went one better than Winston in the 50s, discounting the pesky health concerns of smoking with the tagline “More Doctors smoke Camel than any other cigarette”.



Awesome. And, as far as functional benefits, they go right to telling us “how good-tasting and mild a cigarette can be”. Even Barney Rubble gets into the features and benefits of Winston saying that “Winston’s got that flavour blend that makes the big flavour distance, up-front where it counts.” I guess the filter (what’s in back) was the hurdle to get around in those days... they probably hadn’t yet figured out how to get fibreglass tasty. That, and the health concerns….

Awesome. And to think – you can’t even name a Canadian arts or music festival after du Maurier anymore. You can’t even get into a website for Winston cigarettes today without a rather involved login process requiring third-party age verification (https://winston.tobaccopleasure.com/modules/security/Login.aspx?brand=WIN). Googling “Winston cigarettes” doesn’t even lead you to any specific corporate messaging at all until you are dozens of results into the list.

Of course, this isn’t a bad thing for the general public, but it does open some interesting challenges to advertising edgy (or deadly) products. So what’s a poor advertiser to do when their product is addictive and deadly? That’s right! Black Market! It surely isn’t a coincidence that heroin and cocaine are two of the leading revenue-generating consumer products in North America, is it? Prohibition did wonders for alcohol manufacturers in the Thirties, didn’t it? I suspect that with widespread consolidation in their industry, tobacco manufacturers are likely thrilled to save the advertising spend (Winston and Camel are now both owned by R.J. Reynolds) and put it right back to the bottom line. They still have plenty of consumers, regardless of no media messaging.

And the ‘Madison Avenue’ geniuses? What are they left to do without those lucrative contracts? C’mon…. have you seen mainstream beer advertising lately? If only they could get away with Dora the Explorer in a bikini pounding a six-pack of Schlitz while Boots the Monkey holds the beer bong, they’d be all over it. It’s only an inch away from sodapop, isn’t it?