Sixty-five years ago, in July of 1957, The U.S. surgeon general, Leroy E. Burney, reported that there was a direct link between smoking and lung cancer.
Was anybody listening to him?
date & photographer unknown
Ten
years later, fifty-five years ago, it was about this time of the year I
did listen to what he had to say and indeed, quit smoking the dreadful cancer sticks.
I recall as far back to the forties hearing adults who smoked them saying, "These
cigarettes are going to be the death of me!" A couple of slang terms for them
was cancer sticks and "coffin nails." So, everybody knew WAY before 1957!
I
started to smoke when I was 13. All the cool guys in school smoked; I
wanted to be cool, so, I lit up with the rest of them.
Of
course, I was not old enough to actually buy cigarettes so I stole what
my father smoked. He smoked unfiltered Camels! When I remember that now
I think to myself, "Yech!" This iconic style of Camel is the original unfiltered cigarette sold in a
soft pack, known as "Camel Straights" or Regulars.
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Camel cigarette package front
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Camel cigarette package top & back
Camel is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in the United States and by Japan Tobacco outside the U.S. Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the city where R. J. Reynolds was founded, is nicknamed "Camel City" because of the brand's popularity.
The photograph used for the Camel design was taken on September 29,
1913, by Andrew Jackson Farrell, a Winston-Salem based photographer.
Farrell and Mr. R. C. Haberkern of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company went to
the Barnum & Bailey Circus to photograph a camel and a dromedary to
use in the design for a "brand of Turkish Cigrettes which we [Reynolds
Tobacco] are about to put on the market."
"The label's background of temples, minarets, an oasis, and pyramids
was much like it is today, but the camel in the foreground was a
pathetic, one-humped beast with short, pointed ears, two-pronged hoofs
and a drooping neck.
Its popularity peaked
through the brand's use by famous personalities such as news broadcaster
Edward R. Murrow, whose usage of them was so heavy and so public that the smoking of a Camel no-filter became his trademark. But there were many other celebrities who promoted the brand . . .
American professional baseball players . . .
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. . . movie stars . . .
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. . . singers . . .
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. . . and even DOCTORS!
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In
1946, Camel advertised their cigarettes as being the favorite choice
among doctors "from every branch of medicine", making smokers believe it
was safe to smoke them. The slogan "More doctors smoke Camels than any
other cigarette" became the mainstay of Camel advertising until
1952.
Ads featuring the slogan were seen in a range of media, including medical journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, television commercials, popular radio programs such as Abbott and Costello and magazines such as Life and Time. The slogan was claimed to be based on surveys by "three leading independent research organizations"; however, these surveys were conducted by RJ Reynolds's advertising agency, the William Esty Company, and included free cigarettes for the doctors who were interviewed.
Ads featuring the slogan were seen in a range of media, including medical journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, television commercials, popular radio programs such as Abbott and Costello and magazines such as Life and Time. The slogan was claimed to be based on surveys by "three leading independent research organizations"; however, these surveys were conducted by RJ Reynolds's advertising agency, the William Esty Company, and included free cigarettes for the doctors who were interviewed.
In late 1987, RJ Reynolds created "Joe Camel", a totally sleazy character, as a brand mascot to attract a younger generation as the current one was
dying off. "Joe Camel always had a sexy woman in the ad some where.
The New York Times reported:
Joe Camel was actually born in Europe. The caricatured camel was created in 1974 by a British artist, Nicholas Price, for a French advertising campaign that subsequently ran in other countries in the 1970s. Indeed, [advertising executive John E.] O'Toole recalled a visit to France many years ago during which he glimpsed Joe Camel wearing a Foreign Legion cap. The inspiration behind Mr. Price's cartoon was the camel, named Old Joe, that has appeared on all Camel packages since the brand's initial appearance in 1913.
But
RJ Reynolds didn't ignore the ladies; the company used men in sensual
and erotic situations in their ads to lure the fair creatures with the
come-on, "One of a kind."
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In 1991, the
American Medical Association published a report stating that 5- and
6-year-olds could more easily recognize Joe Camel than Mickey Mouse,
Fred Flintstone, Bugs Bunny, or even Barbie. This led the
association to ask RJR to terminate the Joe Camel campaign. RJR
declined, but further appeals followed in 1993 and 1994. On July 10,
1997, the Joe Camel campaign was retired and replaced with a more adult
campaign which appealed to the desires of its mid-20s target market.
Camel paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits accusing them of using
Joe Camel to market smoking to children.
Camel facts
In 1913, Richard Joshua "R. J." Reynolds, founder of the company,
innovated packaged cigarettes.
Prior cigarette smokers rolled their own, this tended to obscure
the potential for a national market for a pre-packaged product. Reynolds
worked to develop a more appealing flavor, creating the Camel
cigarette, which he so named because it used Turkish tobacco in imitation of then-fashionable Egyptian cigarettes. Reynolds priced them below competitors, and within a year, he had sold 425 million packs.
Camel cigarettes contain a blend of Turkish tobacco and Virginia tobacco
to have a milder taste than established brands. They were
advance-promoted by a careful advertising campaign that included
"teasers" simply stating "the Camels are coming", a play on the old
Scottish folk song The Campbells Are Coming.
Another promotion was "Old Joe", a circus camel driven through towns to
attract attention and distribute free cigarettes. The brand's slogan,
used for decades, was "I'd walk a mile for a Camel!"
The Reynolds marketing gave the impression all was homey, safe and sound when smoking cigarettes.
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Natasha Lyonne, of Orange Is the New Black and Russian Doll fame, and Chloe Fineman did a great send up about the dying art of smoking cigarettes on Saturday Night Live earlier this year (link below).
According
to Harry Berkowitz of the Seattle Times, in the early nineties Nicolas Price, the British
artist who created the tremendously successful Joe Camel caricature says
he is "mortified" that the advertising campaign appears to have enticed
youths into smoking, and he would stop the ad campaign if he could. "On
one level it's flattering that the character has been effective," Price
said. "But on a more personal level, because of the way it was used, I
am mortified." (link below)
All aspects of life and the working condition were utilized for the ad promotions.
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And there were urban legends that grew from the brand; such as the ones about the image of Mae West, a lion or a naked man sporting an erection that was supposedly secretly embedded in the image of the camel on the pack.
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Viewfinder links:
Maureen O'Sullivan
Net links:
The Easter Egg Archive ~ Camel Cigarette Packs Easter Egg
Seattle Times ~ Use Of Joe Camel Ads In U.S. `Mortifies' Figure's Creator
The Straight Dope ~ Camel cigarettes and the subliminal naked man
Smoking Room ~ Hidden Message Behind Camel Cigarette Logo
YouTube links:
SNL ~ Cigarette Show
I know because I've done it thousands of times."
Styrous® ~ Thursday, July 14, 2022
~
History
