Strand (cigarette)
Former British cigarette brand
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Strand was a British brand of cigarettes which was owned and manufactured by W.D. & H.O. Wills (a now defunct subsidiary of Imperial Tobacco).
| |
| Product type | Cigarette |
|---|---|
| Owner | Imperial Brands |
| Produced by | W.D. & H.O. Wills |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Introduced | 1959 |
| Discontinued | Early 1960s |
| Related brands | Embassy |
| Markets | United Kingdom[1][2][3] |
| Tagline | "You're never alone with a Strand. The cigarette of the moment." |
| Carcinogenicity: IARC group 1 | |
History
Strand was launched in 1959 but withdrawn in the early 1960s. The launch was accompanied by a huge television advertising campaign with the slogan "You're never alone with a Strand". They also ran advertisements in newspapers offering a free pack of Strand cigarettes to readers who filled in a coupon and sent it in.
Marketing
You're never alone with a Strand
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This television advertisement depicted a dark, wet, deserted London street scene in which a raincoated character, played by Terence Brook, looking similar to Frank Sinatra, lit a cigarette and puffed reflectively. This was accompanied by an instrumental, "The Lonely Man Theme" by Cliff Adams, playing in the background and a voice-over declared "You're never alone with a Strand. The cigarette of the moment".[4][5]
The commercial, written by John May,[6] was popular with the public, with Brook becoming a star, and the music reaching Number 39 in the UK Singles Chart.[7][8]
However, sales of the brand were poor and it was soon taken off the market. The public associated smoking Strand cigarettes with being lonely and were put off from buying them.[9] It is regarded as one of the most disastrous tobacco advertising campaigns of all time with only 0.3% of male smokers and 0.7% of female smokers ever buying a pack of Strand cigarettes.[10][11][12][13]
The company rebranded Strand as Embassy. The new TV adverts showed a man at a party, ignored by everyone. He produces a pack of Embassy, starts offering them around and is suddenly the life and soul of the party. The advertising campaign's success can be judged by its outcome: Embassy became the biggest selling cigarette of the 1960s.