Even if you are a non-smoker, you would probably be familiar with Marlbrough, it is the biggest selling brand of cigarettes in the world. Phillip Morris used this brand to advance them to the reach to reach their current market share.
It was originally launched as a cigarette for women in 1924, where the name was borrowed from Great Marlbrough Street in London- the location where Phillip Morris has built their factory in 1874. Although by the 1950’s the sale of this brand was so low that the brand was almost pulled form the market.
This was a time in history where the only brands of cigarettes that had filters were woman’s brands. This was contrasted by the male cigarette brands without filters and went hand in hand with the vile behaviour of men spitting in public as being totally acceptable.
The current medical research at the time began to bring to light that smoking tobacco was causing lung cancer. In order to counter the cancer scare that was on the horizon, Phillip Morris was launching a counter attack by developing a filtered cigarette.
During the 1950's, the scientists at Phillip Morris spent in excess ofUS5$ million working on attempts to get rid of the putrid taste of tobacco. Such attempts included activated charcoal, and a product knows as ‘Microtine’ which was essentially a filter system that used our old faithful friend asbestos. Just as well it was a time in history that acetate and asbestos insoluble fibres were being established to be the cause of lung cancer, or smokers from that era would have had even more to overcome regarding their health. It became a high priority for the tobacco companies to find another method of, quick sticks! The industry standard at this stage in the picture is a filter made from cellulose acetates and plastic. Thereare approximately twelve thousand plastic-based fibres – it is still yet be established if these filter cause cancer. These are also non-biodegradable, making the opposite to a green option.
It was around this point in time that the tobacco giant came up with the concept of the Malbrough Man’s filtered cigarette. Another insightful brainwave from the research and development scientists found that ammonia gave them the ability to ‘highlight certain flavours to amplify or ‘puff up the volume of the tobacco –enabling them tp reduce the amount of nicotine per cigarette while possibly removing the amount of carcinogens at the same time, all the while improving the flavour. Malbrough made their mark in history by becoming the first cigarette brand in history to use this new ammonia ‘free-basing’ technique. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424107). This story will further unfold in part 2 of this article. In the meantime, if you are beginning to think twice about lighting up, please go ahead a click on the quit smoking link to gain access to a free report on how you can quit smoking with the power of your mind.