The website was conceptualized during discussions between Hyde Board of Governors member Nancy Lund and Hyde President Malcolm Gauld, who expressed interest in featuring the "unique" and "intriguing" qualities and experiences delivered only at Hyde. Over the past several months, Lund, teaming up with Leo Burnett Worldwide, Inc., a cutting edge global marketing firm, and a group of Hyde employees, an edgy crowd, captured what they believe is the essence of marketing concepts for the Hyde experience. The end result is the Only @ Hyde idea which, over time, will be incorporated into the organization's marketing materials and tools.
While Nancy Lund may have been the "key
steward of the Marlboro brand for more than two decades," Leo Burnett's dealings with Philip Morris/Altria have actually spanned over half a century. Moreover, Burnett played a significant role in the creation of the Marlboro man.
Here is an
excerpt from "The World's Most Powerful Brand," the cover story from
AdWeek's Marketing Week May 9, 1988 edition, describing some early Marlboro history:
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As the world's best-selling cigarette, Marlboro sits atop a pedestal that's crumbling beneath it. The percentage of American adults that smoke drops slightly each year and now stands at 27%, or 47 million people. That's down from 40% in 1964, the year the U.S. Surgeon General first warned of a link between smoking and cancer, heart disease and other health problems. In a recent poll, 55% of adults favored a complete ban on smoking in all public places, and astonishingly, 25% of smokers agreed.
Philip Morris could preserve the Marlboro brand by extending it into other businesses--a strategy Philip Morris executives don't dismiss. And if the odds are against the brand, consider Marlboro's history of beating the odds. First launched as a women's brand in 1924, Marlboro came in a white box with script lettering and the slogan, "Mild as May." Women didn't buy the taste claim, so Philip Morris, desperate for a way to differentiate the brand, added an ivory-colored tip. No dice. Women complained that it showed lipstick stains. So Philip Morris made the tip red. That, too, proved to be a failure, so Philip Morris withdrew the brand in the late 1940s.
Marlboro returned soon after American Tobacco Co. made Pall Mall the first cigarette with a filter tip in the mid-1950s. Figuring it should have a filter cigarette, too, Philip Morris put filter tips on Marlboro and began pitching the brand to men in 1955.
The big breakthrough came a couple of years later when Joe Cullman, then chief executive of Philip Morris, and Leo Burnett, founder of Cullman's advertising agency, invented the new image for Marlboro--the cowboy. Shortly after Philip Morris relaunched the brand, Leo Burnett unveiled ads featuring the notorious cowpoke and the tag-line "The news has come out of the West."
The news was that Marlboro was the first cigarette to come in a flip-top box, and the brand started showing signs of life...