Winston Cigarettes

"Winston Tastes Good..." - The Aftermath of a Slogan

Immediately after their first introduction on the American market, Winston came out with a brilliant slogan: "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should". Here are a few characteristics of this tagline that make it an excellent choice for a campaign promoting a new brand of cigarettes:

• The grammatical error ("like", instead of "as") was intentional to make the tagline and, implicitly, the brand even more recognizable.
• The focus on taste was something new for the sixth decade of the last century. The idea that the most important thing in a cigarette is the taste (and not the tar) was a bold one, considering that most of the brands at the time stressed on the relation between tar and density of smoke.
• Placing the name of the product in the tagline suggested that this was a cigarette for everyone: anyone can repeat the tagline and benefit from Winston's great taste.

After twelve years from the creation of this brand, Winston became the best sold brand of cigarettes in the USA and it kept its position until 1972. So was it just the slogan that influenced people to buy this cigarette, or there was more?

The novelty of Winston cigarettes came from two distinct facts: a new design and a new taste. Each of these factors played a specific role in the development of the brand.

The design was much cleaner and minimalistic than most of the designs advertised by the competitors. It was a combination of abstract figures, instead of focusing on one particular historical, political or ethnic figure. This suggested that the design was merely the effect of the quality of the cigarette, and not the other way around.

The taste was smoother (partly due to the new type of filter and partly due to the mixture) than most of the other varieties of cigarettes on the market. This lead to an increased interest on the women's part and also drove many young people into smoking this brand.