Marlboro
Inducted in 1996

Marlboro has become one of the world's best-selling packaged goods across any product category.

During the early 1900s, non-filter brands dominated the industry and Marlboro was positioned as a woman's cigarette. When a new market, filter cigarettes for men, emerged in the 1950s, Philip Morris engaged the Leo Burnett Agency to reposition the brand.

What emerged in the succeeding years, culminating in 1962, was the first Marlboro Man. The following year, he was given a home: Marlboro Country - a place of mythical dimensions, heroic in scope, breathtakingly beautiful and endlessly rich in variety. The advertising portrayed the power and excitement of the country and the genuine strength, skill and mastery of the man.

As the years passed, this enduring concept provided a solid foundation to launch product line extensions, each of which utilized the familiar theme of Marlboro Country. The campaign's ability to transcend borders also achieved international success and by 1972, Marlboro had become the best-selling cigarette in the world.

To address heightened competition from the discount cigarette segment of the market in the late 1980s, Philip Morris began investing in equity building activities, retail visibility and image-oriented consumer promotions: Marlboro Racing, The Marlboro Adventure Team, Marlboro Country Store Gear, and the opportunity to travel the Marlboro Unlimited, a state-of-the-art train that was recently introduced as a sweepstakes in which winners tour the American west.

Today, about one out of every three cigarettes sold in the United States is a Marlboro and the brand's steadily growing worldwide sales now exceed 421 billion, testimony to one of the most successful and recognizable campaigns in marketing history. Twenty years after becoming the world's most popular brand of cigarettes, Marlboro has become one of the world's best-selling packaged goods across any product category.