Marlboro yesterday and today : a comparative case study analysis of the change/development of the marketing campaign of Philip Morris's Marlboro brand in the 1950s and early 2000s

Abstract

The following project is a comparative case study and aims to explore the change/development of a marketing strategy of tobacco brand - in this case Philip Morris's Marlboro - during 1950s and the 'now' period, i.e. early 2000s. It also sets to compare and contrast the strategies of the two time periods analyzed. Ever since first links between smoking and its effects on health have been made, there has been a belief that tobacco advertising leads to an increase in smoking habits. As such, regulations and restrictions of tobacco advertising have become increasingly severe and made tobacco advertising a heated controversial issue. This project starts with an introduction of the topic, the reason why I chose it and why is it this particular topic of interest to me. Following the introduction chapter is the literature review chapter which positions the topic and sets forth the issues involved in the study. It is divided into five subsections each of which deal with relevant theories and discussions. The next chapter describes qualitative case study approach which is the method l used to arrive to my data. The case studies chapter is structured with by the interview questions and shows the results that I obtained. The Comparative Analysis chapter deals with the comparisons of the marketing campaigns of the two time periods and also compares them to the issues presented in the literature review chapter. Finally, the last chapter is my conclusion where I close the project and explain my findings. I also include the arising issues that I came across while conducting this study as well as the areas that I would like to research further.