Benjamin Toll, PhD, School of Medicine, Yale University, 1 Long Wharf Drive, Box 18, New Haven, CT 06511, 203-974-5767, benjamin.toll@yale.edu and Pamela M Ling, MD, MPH, Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of California San Francisco, Box 0320, San Francisco, CA 94143.

Background: No prior studies have systematically analyzed previously secret tobacco industry documents describing marketing to women. Objective: Use a Virginia Slims (VS) case study to explore why young females are important to the tobacco industry, and how tobacco marketers appeal to them. Methods: Analysis of previously secret tobacco industry documents. Results: VS advertising focused, not on the cigarette, but on creating a brand “personality” that women aspired to. VS co-opted women’s liberation slogans to build a modern female image from 1968 through the 1980s, and its market share grew from 0.24% to 3.16%. Ironically, the feminist image that grew the brand was also the reason for its subsequent problems. VS’s image failed to evolve, and by 1989 young women, which were critical to maintain market share, no longer identified with its “feminist” personality. VS abandoned its signature campaign, and attempted to create a younger personality that retained confidence, intelligence, style, and spontaneity. Nonetheless, between 1989 and 1996 its market share declined to 2.4%. Simultaneously, newer brands like Misty targeted younger women with images of friendly, relaxed, trend setters, while the Capri brand was repositioned for the “elegant, sophisticated, upscale, older image” that VS abandoned. Conclusions: Image based tobacco advertising created distinct female brand personalities. Continued appeal to young women was critical for long-term growth. The need for established brands to evolve to maintain relevance to young women creates an opportunity for tobacco counter-marketing, which should undermine “smoker personality” imagery and promote aspirational smoke free lifestyle imagery relevant to young women.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss why tobacco companies consider young adult women to be the critical segment of the female market
• Recognize four key components of tobacco advertisements targeting young women
• Describe three strategies used by tobacco companies to increase their advertising relevance to young women in the early 1990s
• Discuss counter-marketing strategies that are most likely to undermine the images created by Virginia Slims style advertising

Keywords: Marketing, Women

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.