11th January, 1964 the day when the United States government declared that smoking cigarettes causes cancer.
The days after that saw a rapid downfall in the consumption of cigarette consumers. This not only proved as a downfall for the cigarette industry but also placed the incomes of more than 7,50,000 on stakes. With the sales of most companies falling, there was just one company who was still making profit out of this entire chaos which was Marlboro.
The Dark Horse:
Marlboro was the only single company who went on from 1% market hold to becoming the 4th largest cigarette brand in the world in just under one year. Also after the permanent ban of cigarette advertisements from the television, Marlboro did more business and became the first company to have more consumers than the total number of consumers of its next 10 consumers. The real question is “ HOW? ”.
How was Marlboro able to convince its consumers to buy their cigarettes when every other brand in the field was just opposing the report published by the US surgeon?
How did Marlboro use the ban on cigarettes to its own benefits and become a $60 billion brand?
Lifestyle Marketing:
All the credit goes to one of the most important marketing strategies ever witnessed by mankind which was “Lifestyle Marketing”. Let us take an example to understand this concept, In the US Nike hired Michael Jordan to increase the brand value. With this step, the fascination for Air Jordan sky rocketed and the fans went so crazy that even after 18 years of this move, Michael Jordan still receives $100 million dollars till date.
Lifestyle Marketing is a technique where a product is branded and marketed in such a way that it is perceived by its audience that it will help solve their insecurities. This is a great move by many brands who are unable to solve their disputes or who are unable to engage with their customers.
The Marlboro Man:
Marlboro implemented the same under the name of “Marlboro Man”. The fun part is there was no such motive of promoting the cigarettes in the advertisement, in fact in the entire video advertisement there was just a 10 second clip of the guy consuming cigarette but due to the lifestyle marketing, the audience got influenced and took it as a major infatuation.
Marketing should be implemented in a way that the audience gets infatuated due to insecurities and not by promoting the brand or the product on a larger scale. Proper marketing technique will get you customers even out of the dark zones when you need the most.