L & M Cigarettes

L&M - A True Reference among Cigarette Brands

The history of L&M starts with Christopher Foulks, who owned a snuff mill during the 19th century. Forming a partnership back in 1873, the company became the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, which, consequently, became the Liggett Group. In 1953, the company created the L&M brand of cigarettes, using the name we still know today.

During the last 50 years, L&M was directly and indirectly related to a few innovations in the field of tobacco products, including the first non-one-side filter in the USA. However, when discussing the history of this company and brand, one needs to understand that the Liggett Group never truly relied on innovation (as most other brands did, including Kent, Chesterfield, Davidoff, and Virginia Slims), as they tried to find the proper balance between novelty and tradition.

It's precisely tradition which led them so far in a market where competence and competition are very strong. Using tobacco from similar plantations, they managed to keep the taste unchanged for generations. Also, they kept similar manufacturing techniques from one factory to another in order to better manage the taste and, implicitly, their own identity. This fact created a particular situation: L&M are one of the few companies in the world whose clients say they will never shift to a different brand. The aroma, the taste, and the effects of these cigarettes are so specific that people smoking them avoid trying others.

A special focus should be put on the way L&M managed their image. At first, it was all about tradition, but soon L&M found themselves confronting with competing brands featuring modern, if not futuristic brands. However, they still did not shift to such an image and focused on a combination of clean image and traditional landmarks. At the end of the last century, this combination was already obsolete, and L&M shifted again to the image we know today: international, clean, and postmodern.