Wholly Smokes (8 page)
Either way, from that day forward, Augustus Badcock was no longer an obstacle to progress.
Augustus was succeeded by his nephew Horace (“Boomer”) Badcock, a man with more experience of the modern world, and especially of the Great Depression. As a young man, Horace took a summer off and tramped the country. He lived the life of a hobo, riding the freight trains, standing in soup lines, sleeping outdoors – and drinking antifreeze. “I wanted to get in touch with real people,” he explained later. The episode earned him the nickname, “Boomer,” which he bore proudly the rest of his days.
Horace felt he knew what ordinary people wanted in a cigarette, namely an escape into elegance. “They don’t enjoy living in dirt, and poverty, and ugliness,” he said. “They want beauty and sophistication. They want class and plenty of it. We need to make our products as exciting as the movies. When people light up, they ought to feel they’re sharing in the lives of the famous, the glamorous, the wealthy. They ought to feel it’s like sipping that first martini.”
He rehired the advertising department and cautiously endorsed the new campaign. The company prepared to launch a new cigarette with an English name.
The name itself was a problem. A number of
English names were considered and rejected, for various reasons. Some were too hard to pronounce (Cholmondely, Leicester, Featherstone-haugh). Some simply had a comical sound (Stoke-on-the-Wold, Horsleydown, Cuthbert Harrowing, Wrangthorn, Plimsoll). Some sounded faintly risqué (Marquis of Bath, Knight of the Garter, and Lord Privy Seal).
The final choice was
Lord Chamberlain
, a name sufficiently aristocratic, suave, and worldly. No one knew that, in Britain, this was only the title of a dull official whose chief job was censoring plays. In America the name itself would play well –on Broadway or anywhere else.
The drift of the campaign was clear in magazine ads from prestigious 1930s magazines like
New Yorker
and
Vanity Fair
. Each ad featured a glittering aristocrat.
In one ad a society lady is shown in two poses: in aviator suit, climbing from the cockpit of her own plane; in evening dress she welcomes guests to a dazzling dinner party. Always and everywhere, she smokes Lord Chamberlains.
“I serve them to my guests between courses,” she explains. “Nothing aids digestion like Lord Chamberlain.”
“For a recent dinner party at our house in Newport, I really depended upon Lord Chamberlain,” she says. “I serve them to guests after every course – everyone knows they aid digestion – and they make the conversation flow and the occasion simply sparkle.” She laughs. “My friends are all sold on Lord Chamberlain. It’s the modern thing to do!”
Lord
Chamberlain –
It’s the
Modern Thing
to Do!
To the rest of the world, she’s the
Baroness du
Champs-Elysée
, very much a part of the glittering haut monde, dashing back from an Alpine skiing holiday to catch the New York season, before she flies her monoplane out West to visit her rancho. Then it’s off to Deauville or the south of France.
But to her friends, she’s just Sally, the fresh-faced, girl who’s always ready for a lark – like going to Harlem in sables and pearls. And when she smokes, it’s always
Lord
Chamberlain
Another ad shows a tall, slim man in full evening dress, under the canopy of a Harlem nightclub. He wears a bright scarlet-lined cape and a bright blue order (the color reproduction of the time could not manage much more than red or blue). His hair and naval beard are bright orange-red, and his eye (the one not hidden by a monocle) vivid blue. He has just stepped out of a limousine and paused to remove his gloves and take a reflective pull at his cigarette.
King Edilvik of Ruritania says:
“I like to prowl in strange places. I find I can take Lord Chamberlain anywhere. My constant companion, it’s at home on safari in Nairobi, or racing my favorite car at Daytona, or just relaxing at the Cotton Club. Wherever I go, Lord Chamberlain helps me get more out of life.”
These days there was a plentiful supply of exiled Ruritanian and other aristocrats, thanks to the turmoil in Europe. How long before America got into it? For GST, a new World War might mean new markets – and brand new rules.
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on a Sunday. On Monday, Horace Badcock called an emergency meeting of the board.
HORACE: You heard Mr. Roosevelt. It’s war, boys, and we’ve got to pitch in.
BOARD MEMBER: Well of course, every company is expected to do its patriotic duty.
HORACE: I’m not talking about the war with Japan and Italy and Germany. I’m talking about the war with our rivals, the makers of Lucky Strike, Camel, and Chesterfield. This is real war! No quarter will be asked or granted, no prisoners taken, and no holds barred! It is, quite simply, a battle to the death!
BOARD MEMBER: Isn’t that a little strong? I mean, we’re all gentlemen. Businesses all have to pull
together for the good of the country.
HORACE: Damn the country! We are fighting for our lives! For room to live and breathe! Our products need living space, and we can only give it to them by taking that space away from our enemies!
BOARD MEMBER (skeptical): How are we supposed to begin?
HORACE: We need to begin with a sneak attack. With anew brand of cigarettes – Hits! Hits will be tough, no-nonsense, a fighting man’s smoke. In a plain brown pack.
Hits was a patriotic blunderbuss (every ad featured American flags and Minutemen) that nevertheless failed to hit its target. According to a marketing memo, it lacked the right touch:
The problem is not the cigarette.
Hits
is essentially the right product for our times. Consumers no longer want to identify with monocled aristocrats in red-lined capes. That fancy-pants stuff is
strictly for the birds. What they want is patriotism and teamwork and the common man just rolling up his sleeves and doing the job. We have to aim at that common man.What’s more important, we have to aim at the common
woman
too. Women are now flooding into the war plants, taking up jobs like welding and riveting. They work like men and they want to smoke like men.
This can be a massive new market
.Our new brand,
Hits
, ought to be perfect for this new women’s market, but so far it isn’t doing well. Women just don’t care for that dull brown packaging. The fact is, no matter how tough Rosie the Riveter is, she wants a cigarette pack that matches her lipstick. We need to change the packaging color to red as soon as possible.We suggest announcing the change with an ad slogan: “Hits Brown has Gone to War.” The ad copy will go on to explain that brown dye is now needed for uniforms or camouflage paint or something patriotic. Let the wordsmiths hammer it all out. But the ad should finish up something like this: “Hits is helping Uncle Sam. You can help too, by buying War
Bonds. Keep ‘Em Flying! Keep ’Em Smoking!”
With this campaign, Hits sales became brisk, but other tobacco companies were fighting too for bigger shares of the market. GST fought back hard. Its radio ads hinted that other brands might cause “tired lungs.”
Did you know the cigarette you smoke can make a difference to the war effort? Some brands cause tired lungs. You feel too rundown and tired to do your job. You can’t give Uncle Sam a hundred percent. And Uncle Sam needs a hundred percent from everybody, so he can give Hitler and Tojo a kick in the pants.
Of course, Hitler and Tojo would like it fine if you had tired lungs. So don’t make it easy on the enemy. If you’ve got tired lungs, give Hits a try. Remember, Hits is helping Uncle Sam. You can help too! Buy Bonds and Keep ‘Em Smoking!
For a time, GST sought an endorsement from General Douglas MacArthur. Horace began trying to look like MacArthur – wearing dark glasses and a crushed hat, smoking a corncob pipe – hoping to ingratiate himself with MacArthur. Seemingly this had no effect.
General Horace
Badcock Smoking His
Famous Corncob Pipe
Horace then planned a campaign in which MacArthur would appear in an ad saying he was giving up his famous corncob pipe and switching to Hits. When the general refused to cooperate, Horace wrote:
I’m not disappointed. Why should we bother with an endorsement by the man who lost the Pacific war? No, we need to think bigger, aim our sights higher. Find what brand FDR smokes in his cigarette holder over at the White House. If it’s not ours, see what he will take to change to our brand. By God,
there’s
an endorsement worth having!
GST magazine ads featured heroic paintings of fighting men and working women smoking.
One ad showed what was supposed to be a naval gun crew after a battle, their faces gleaming with sweat and grime, puffing with pleasure on Hits as they rested near the powder magazine. Another showed what was supposed to be a bomber crew over Germany, flipping back their oxygen masks to light up.
Neither radio nor print ads were working well enough. Horace called a meeting and laid down the law to his marketing people: “To hell with tired lungs. To hell with Uncle Sam. We need something direct, something with punch. Before the war ends, I want us to be Number One! No excuses! Number One! And somebody for God’s sake get me a drink!”
To become Number One, it was essential to show that GST products were more patriotic, more military, and altogether far more American than the competition. In desperation, the GST marketing team turned to less honorable methods.
They started whisper campaigns suggesting that rival brands were far from patriotic. Lucky Strikes were whispered to be a favorite in Berlin, where they were called “Streichenheimers.” Chesterfields were likewise whispered to be popular with monocle-wearing Nazi generals, who smoked them in effeminate holders. Camels were whispered to be packed with secret poisons by Japanese agents. Alas for GST, no one believed a damn word of it.