In the year 1928, the American Tobacco Company appointed Edward Barney to promote and sell cigarettes to women. In those days, there were several challenges to getting women to smoke cigarettes given the social stigma attached to “smoking women”.
In the background, the US was experiencing the winds of change with intense women liberation activism that started in 1920 demanding equal rights to women (among them, the right to vote). Edward Barney sensed a golden opportunity to further his goals by riding on this new wave that was sweeping America.
In the Eastern Parade of 1929, Barney smartly planted his secretary Helen who created quite a sensation by lighting a cigarette right in the middle of the 5th Avenue Street. Helen was followed by 10 other women in trendy outfits each carrying a cigarette and posing for the photographers (everything of course arranged by Barney). The next day New York Times ran a story titled ‘Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of Freedom’. This campaign, which was called ‘Torches of Freedom’, was one of the most successful campaigns for a Tobacco company and led to an exponential growth in the sales of cigarettes (and also cases of lung cancer) in the years to come.
There was an invaluable lesson in marketing for all to learn
Marketing/Advertising till the early 1900’s was more about giving out factual information. So, an advertisement about milk would typically talk about the farm it came from, the nutrients, fat content, etc.
Barney was the first marketer to appeal to the emotions of the consumer through his marketing campaigns. He is credited with a lot of firsts in the field of marketing…from celebrity endorsements to live PR events…always appealing more to the feeling brain.
Cut to the present…can we really imagine a fact-based advertisement with no emotional appeal. Even the health food ads emphasize more on the emotional aspect of healthier and happier living. I wonder how would the consumers respond to a fact-based ad of a cola or chips 😊.
We can also see the same phenomenon working for cinemas/movies. Many argue that cinema/movies are a reflection of the times we live in (hope that is not always true considering the horrendous movies I have seen off late). Think about movies such as Lakshya (set during the India -Pakistan skirmishes of 2001-2002) that were appealing to the popular emotions resulting from the contemporary events.
As someone rightly said “Marketing specifically identifies or accentuates the customers moral gaps and then offers a way to fill them”
Do reflect on the ad campaigns that have touched you emotionally and why did they appeal to your feeling brain the way they did.
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