When you’re selling something as addictive as cigarettes, there’s little that could go wrong, especially if you’ve been in the business for the past 100 years! I mean, when even apes and monkeys can get hooked to your product, how hard can selling cigarettes be?
But in 1988 RJ Reynolds (The same company which produces the Camel brand) messed up big time- They launched “smokeless” cigarettes.
RJ Reynolds christened the new brand of cigarettes as Premier and shipped hundreds of thousands of cartons.
They marketed the cigarettes on the logic:
Once smokers get used to the fact that there was no smoke and ash, they would embrace the cigarettes as they were cleaner and did not give off the familiar stench.
If reports are to be believed, the company spent close to $300 million on R&D and marketing. However, RJ Reynolds missed the basic axiom of smoking:
Smokers didn’t give two hoots about ash.
People who tried out the cigarette said the cigarette tasted like burning plastic. The only adopters were high school students who sneaked in the cigarettes to schools.
The product was eventually recalled.