Newport's Alive With Pleasure Campaign
Cigarette advertising holds an especially terrible place in the history of advertising that can conveniently be summed up with the fact that the Marlboro Man is an icon who died of lung cancer. As someone who works in advertising, I have to say that this category is awful. So with all that said, one of my favorite ad campaigns of all time is Newport’s Alive With Pleasure! print campaign. Every ad is roughly the same. The headline says “Alive with pleasure! NEWPORT” and the subhead next to a pack of cigarettes says “After all, if something isn’t a pleasure, why bother?” These two lines sandwich the real highlights of the ads: the centerpiece photos, which never make sense. I suppose in someway if they embody the idea of pleasure, but not a joyous one. The scenes are often lighthearted, occasionally sadomasochistic as they present a surreal side of reality. Put your head inside a bell as your partner laughs. Let’s play basketball but you’re the ref and the backboard. Hey girl, do you like ripped hot guys who can play the trombone? Those are just three examples but they embody what the campaign is all about, which isn’t particularly clear. When I look at these ads, I don’t know what I’m supposed to take away from them. What is their point? Maybe they’re a kind of high modern art. But they’re not something I would easily be able to sell to a client. Hey let’s put your logo and product on a confusing image with a headline that doesn’t really connect, sound good? Great, we’ll run it for years. I don’t know if this campaign worked but know that don’t need to either.
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