Up in Smoke

This Old Gold cigarette ad, promoting “Two fine and healthful treats” appeared in the Kankakee Daily Republican on December 12, 1928. (Kankakee County Museum Photo Archive)

By Jack KlaseyMarch 8, 2025

A large advertisement on Page 12 of the Kankakee Republican-News’ issue of October 5, 1943, appeared to contain a cryptic message. The ad featured an illustration of a farmer displaying a huge tobacco leaf, the word “Yes” and a five-word phrase—”Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco”— in which each of the initial letters was heavily underlined.

The advertisement was for a popular brand of cigarettes, Lucky Strike, and the underlined letters (L. S. M. F. T.) formed a slogan that was extensively used in the brand’s newspaper and magazine ads, as well as radio “spots.”

From the 1920s through the 1950s, when much of the advertising migrated to television, ads for cigarettes and other tobacco products formed an important revenue source for newspapers. Before World War I (1914-1918), tobacco products such as cigars and snuff were infrequently advertised in newspapers. One of the first newspaper ads for a cigarette brand to appear locally was in the Daily Republican of December 3, 1914. The ad promoted Camels as “a cigarette of exquisite flavor” made with “choice Turkish and domestic tobaccos.” A pack of twenty Camel cigarettes sold for ten cents.

Military service in WWI introduced many young men to smoking, since cigarettes were among the items included in their field rations. After the war, cigarette advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio, and even billboards surged as tobacco companies vied for market share. Among the strategies used by advertisers was the creation of memorable “tags” or slogans for their products.

Chesterfields simply stated, “They Satisfy,” while Old Gold claimed there was “Not a cough in a carload.” Lucky Strike’s “L. S. M. F. T.” was used for years, but the brand also was remembered for a tag that it promoted heavily in 1942: “Lucky Strike Green Has Gone To War!” That slogan came about when the company stopped using a green printed background on its cigarette packs, Ingredients in the green ink were needed for more important war production purposes, so the brand redesigned its packaging with a white background.

Another highly memorable slogan was generated in the1920s for Camel cigarettes, which was for many years the country’s leading brand. The slogan supposedly was born from a conversation between a man painting a Camel advertising billboard and a spectator. The spectator asked the sign painter to give him a cigarette, and the painter complied, offering him (of course) a Camel. The man enthusiastically responded, “I’d walk a mile for a Camel!”

In the 1930s, the Philip Morris cigarette brand created a long-running campaign featuring “Johnny,” a uniformed hotel bellboy who loudly announced, “Call for Philip Morris.” The bellboy and his announcement appeared in newspaper, magazine, radio, and television ads for decades.

In a 1924 bid for the growing number of women beginning to smoke, Marlboro cigarettes were introduced, with the slogan “Mild as May.” In the mid-1950s, the brand was repositioned for a male audience, with a rugged cowboy character urging smokers to “Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro country.”

A much more successful marketing appeal to female smokers came in 1968, when the Virginia Slims cigarette brand was introduced, with the advertising slogan, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

In the late 1920s, Lucky Strike appealed to calorie-counting dieters with the slogan, “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet;” Old Gold countered with a more permissive approach: an ad that appeared in the December 12, 1928, issue of the Kankakee Daily Republican: “Eat a Chocolate, Light an Old Gold…and enjoy BOTH!” the ad proclaimed, terming the combination, “Two fine and healthful treats.”

Health claims, especially of “mildness” and lack of throat irritation, were commonly used in cigarette advertising. In the May 18, 1931, issue of the Daily Republican, Lucky Strike claimed, “It’s Toasted. Your throat protection against irritation, against cough.” A 1948 ad in the Kankakee Daily Journal declared, “Camels are so mild that a 30-day test revealed no throat irritation due to smoking Camels.”

Cigarette ads often included endorsements from such individuals as operatic diva Lucrezia Bori (1936, for Old Gold) and New York Yankees’ baseball star Roger Maris (1960 for Camels). There were also “group” endorsements, such as the June 9, 1952, ad in the Daily Journal announcing “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette. The doctors’ choice is America’s choice!” A similar claim was made on June 14, 1960, when Kent cigarettes advertised in the Daily Journal, “Kent with the Micronite filter is smoked by more scientists and educators than any other cigarette.”

Cigarette smoking suffered a major setback in 1964, when the U.S. Surgeon General issued a scientific report that concluded smoking caused cancer and other serious maladies. Beginning January 1, 1965, cigarette packages were required to display a warning that “Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy.”

Six years later, advertising of cigarettes and other tobacco products on television and radio was banned by the federal government. On January 1, 1971, Johnny the bellboy announced “Call for Philip Morris” for the last time, and the Marlboro Man rode off into the sunset.

Newspapers and magazines benefited, for a time, as tobacco companies shifted their advertising dollars from tv and radio to print media. However, the health warnings began to affect the cigarette market, as existing smokers quit and fewer individuals began lighting up. In 1965, 41.9 percent of adults in the United States were cigarette smokers; ten years later, that number was halved, dropping to 20.8 percent (by 2024, the number of cigarette users had dropped to just under 10 percent).

Today, cigarette advertisements are virtually nonexistent in newspapers and magazines, due to a number of factors, including health concerns, the steadily shrinking market for tobacco products, and decisions by publication owners to decline cigarette advertising.

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Jack Klasey is a former Journal reporter and a retired publishing executive. He can be contacted at jwklasey@comcast.net.