Marlboro was a women's brand that flopped — then became the most masculine in history

Philip Morris launched Marlboro in 1924 as a women's cigarette with the slogan 'Mild as May'. The brand was packaged with a red tip to hide lipstick stains — a feature designed for female smokers. For three decades, Marlboro was a minor brand with less than 1% of the US cigarette market, one of many also-rans in Philip Morris's portfolio.

In the early 1950s, the first major health scare about smoking hit the US. Readers' Digest published articles linking cigarettes to lung cancer. Smokers began looking for filtered cigarettes, which were perceived as safer. But filters had a problem: they were seen as effeminate. Most filtered brands were marketed to women, and male smokers refused to touch them.

Philip Morris acquired the rights to a new filter design in 1954. The company needed a brand to put it in — and chose Marlboro, the failed women's brand nobody cared about. They hired Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett, who made a daring bet: instead of hiding the filter's feminine associations, they would create the most aggressively masculine brand image possible. The Marlboro Man — a cowboy — was born.

The campaign was an immediate success. Marlboro's market share grew from near-zero to become the world's best-selling cigarette brand. The filter, originally designed as a women's feature to hide lipstick stains, became the key selling point of a 'masculine' brand. By the 1970s, Marlboro was the most valuable cigarette brand on earth, a position it held for decades.