Dakota (cigarette)
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.jpg) An old American pack of Dakota cigarettes | |
| Product type | Cigarette |
|---|---|
| Owner | R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company |
| Produced by | R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company |
| Country | United States |
| Introduced | 1990 |
| Discontinued | 1990 |
| Markets | United States, Mexico, Russia[1][2] |
| Tagline | "Smooth. Streetwise", "Smooth revolution", "Smooth action. Slow burn", "Dakota. Where smooth comes easy" |
| Carcinogenicity: IARC group 1 | |
Dakota was an American brand of cigarettes which was owned and manufactured by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.
Dakota was introduced in 1990 and was mainly marketed towards 18 to 24 year old blue-collar "virile females" with no education beyond high school, held entry-level service or factory jobs, had no career prospects, and had a high probability of being unemployed or employed only part time, who wear casual clothes (e.g., jeans, knit tops, sweaters, shorts, warm-up suits, and sweatshirts and sweatpants) and wore little makeup, their taste in television programs included evening soap operas and situation comedies with working-class heroines, such as Roseanne, and their music tastes centered on all-male, classic rock bands, in an attempt to displace the Marlboro brand, without diluting Reynolds' dominant Camel brand's appeal to males.[3][4][5][6][7]
According to the promotional plan, the virile female spent her free time with her boyfriend, "doing whatever he is doing", aspired to getting married in her early twenties and having a family. She and her friends pursued interests such as "cruising", partying, listening to classic rock and roll, attending various motor sports (e.g., drag races, Hot rod shows, tractor pulls, and motorcycle races), playing softball and bowling, watching wrestling and "Tough Man" competitions, and attending fairs and carnivals. These characteristics were described as "hot buttons" for appealing to the virile female and her friends.[8][9]
Forty package backgrounds and 40 names for the new brand were tested in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Several variations in packaging and product were considered, including a slide box, a foil inner seal, a wider cigarette, and a slower burning cigarette with a higher puff count. Research explored the packaging colors blue, brown, and burgundy. The women in the focus group preferred burgundy, rating the color as "unique/different, attractive, friends would carry, high quality, modern/contemporary". Consumers in Atlanta were the test group for 120 ad concepts for the new brand of cigarettes, and evaluations by consumers in Baltimore, Maryland, were subsequently used to refine 50 ad concepts. The selected set of advertising images was tested with five focus groups of Marlboro smokers in Chicago, Illinois, who were 18 through 20 years old.
After test-marketing in Houston, Tucson, Phoenix, and Nashville, the brand didn't yield the desired results and was eventually withdrawn.[5][10]
Controversy
Dakota and targeting towards "virile women"
In February 1990, details of the marketing campaign of the Dakota brand were leaked to The Washington Post and revealed that the cigarettes were narrowly targeted at a demographic described as "virile females". Despite the denial of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to have specifically targeted young females, this revelation sparked widespread discussion of targeted advertising in general in the media.[11][12][13][14][7][15]
