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Viceroy (cigarette)

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Viceroy
Product typeCigarette
OwnerBritish American Tobacco
CountryUnited States
Introduced1936; 88 years ago (1936)
MarketsSee Markets
Previous ownersBrown & Williamson
Tagline"Viceroy's Got The Taste That's Right", "As Your Dentist, I Would Recommend Viceroys"
Carcinogenicity: IARC group 1

Viceroy is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in the United States and British American Tobacco outside of the United States.

History

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Viceroy was introduced by Brown & Williamson in 1936 and was the world's first cork-tipped filter cigarette.[1] It was a mid-priced brand at the time, equivalent to B&W's Raleigh cigarettes flagship brand, but more expensive than Wings cigarettes introduced by B&W in 1929.[1]

In 1952 Viceroy was the first brand to add a cellulose acetate filter which established a new industry standard. In 1953, Viceroy Filter Kings were introduced.

In 1979, Viceroy introduced a low tar version called Rich Lights.[2]

In 1990, Viceroy Box Kings and Lights Box Kings were introduced on the U.S. market, followed by Viceroy Ultra Lights Kings and Ultra Lights 100's in 1992.

New Viceroy 100's box styles changed in the 1990s, and Viceroy Menthol was introduced in 2000. All Viceroy styles changed to a more contemporary packaging on packs and cartons without changes to the product blend.

On July 30, 2004, parent company Reynolds American was formed as a joint venture between the U.S. branch of BAT and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. The Viceroy brand was brought under the Reynolds American umbrella as a part of B&W under RJR Tobacco.[3]

After the B&W merger, the Viceroy brand has been played down in the U.S., continuing to be sold on the markets where demand is strong, like Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Romania, the Middle East, Turkey and Chile.[4] Viceroy Red and Blue are sold as a budget brand in Canada.

In July 2017, it was announced that British American Tobacco would be phasing out sales of its Viceroy Red cigarettes in Argentina and replace them with Rothmans, The official New Viceroy for The Tobacco Conglomerate Royce JW Carter of Cartiers US , The story said that Argentina was the first Latin American country to which BAT had introduced Rothmans.[5]

Advertising

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1957 Viceroy ad

Brown & Williamson made various poster and magazine advertisements to promote the Viceroy brand.[6][7][8]

Various TV ads were also made to promote the brand from the 1950s to the 1970s.[9][10][11][12]

One of the most notable Viceroy advertisements, were the ones that advertised that, because Viceroy cigarettes were filter-tipped, less tar would manifest on and between the teeth, and would thus be a "healthier" alternative to other brands. A slogan used in the 1940s ads at the time was "As your dentist, I would recommend Viceroys".[13]

In the 1970s, Brown & Williamson realised that the cigarette brand was mainly smoked by women and couples because the Viceroy brand was "less masculine than its key competition" and the brand had a "feminine orientation" according to internal documents. From the early 1970s onwards, B&W started to sponsor the brand via the Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing team in autosport championships such as the United States Auto Club and Formula 1 to give the brand a more "masculine" additude, similar to Marlboro.[14]

In 1974, Viceroy partnered with TAG Heuer and produced a special version of the black-dialed Autavia (a watch introduced in 1933) that was offered for US$88. This version of the Autavia was called the "Viceroy" and advertisements for this promotion featured racer Parnelli Jones.[15] Various adverts were made to promote both the cigarette brand and the Autavia watch.[14][16][17]

Controversy

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Encouraging children to smoke

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An old pack of Viceroy cigarettes with a Romanian text warning which reads "Smoking seriously harms you and those around you"

In the 1970s, Viceroy was proposed as part of a B&W marketing test to see whether children could be encouraged to become smokers. This was discovered by the Federal Trade Commission during a closed investigation of cigarette company advertising practices. The Viceroy ad campaign was not carried out.[18]

Genetically modified tobacco used in Viceroys

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The Viceroy brand was involved in public controversy beginning in 1994 when U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Aaron Kessler revealed that B&W had been found growing genetically modified tobacco plants in South America, the plants engineered to produce increased levels of nicotine. Viceroy King Size and Viceroy Lights King Size cigarettes made in 1993 were identified as some of the B&W brands carrying "approximately 10% of this genetically bred high-nicotine tobacco called Y-1," referring to Y1 tobacco.[19]

Adding chemicals to increase addiction

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Further controversy came in 1995 when former B&W vice president Jeffrey Wigand, a research chemist, revealed that B&W had been adding chemicals to the B&W cigarette brands Kool, Capri and Viceroy to increase smokers' addiction to nicotine.[1][20]

Sponsorship

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USAC/IndyCar

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Viceroy sponsored the Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing team in the USAC Car Championship in the 1972 and 1973 seasons.[14][21][22][23][24]

Formula 1

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Viceroy sponsored the Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing team in the 1974 and 1975 seasons.[25][26][27][28]

Football

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Viceroy was a sponsor of the Hong Kong Viceroy Cup which was held from 1969 until 1998.[29][30][31]

[edit]

There is a packet of Viceroy cigarettes on the table in 12 Angry Men (1957 film). It lays in front of juror number 8 played by Henry Fonda.

Music

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Canadian singer-songwriter Mac DeMarco made a song called "Ode to Viceroy", a tribute to his favorite brand of cigarettes.[32][33][34] The song was recorded on his album 2 in June 2012 and was released in October 2012.[35]

In an interview on Thrasher Magazine, Mac said about the song:[35]

A lot of people don't even understand that that's a reference to cigarettes because that brand doesn't exist in a lot of places in the world. It used to be a big American cigarette brand. ... The idea of the song isn't, like, try cigarettes! It's more, like, I have an addiction! In Canada all of the cigarettes are really, really moderated by the government so they wouldn't do anything and that's a good thing.

Markets

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Viceroy cigarettes were or still are sold in the following countries: United States, Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Chile, Argentina, United Kingdom, Finland, West Germany, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Belarus, Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Israel, Thailand, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Jordan, Singapore and Venezuela.[36][37][38]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Cox, Jim (2008). Sold On Radio: Advertisers in the Golden Age of Broadcasting. McFarland. pp. 102–103. ISBN 978-0786433919.
  2. ^ "Industry Documents Library".
  3. ^ Cox 2008, p. 231
  4. ^ "Our international brands". British American Tobacco. Retrieved November 20, 2012.
  5. ^ "Viceroy on way out". Tobacco Reporter. 26 July 2017. Retrieved 2018-03-23.
  6. ^ "A Report to Doctors". LIFE. Time Inc. 7 December 1953 – via Google Books.
  7. ^ "Vintage Tobacco/ Cigarette Ads of the 1950s (Page 7)". www.vintageadbrowser.com.
  8. ^ "Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising". tobacco.stanford.edu.
  9. ^ "Viceroy Commercials Compilation". 23 March 1964 – via Internet Archive.
  10. ^ "Viceroy Commercials [Parts 1- 2]" – via Internet Archive.
  11. ^ "Viceroy Commercials [Part 2]" – via Internet Archive.
  12. ^ Classic Commercials (10 March 2014). "28 Classic Retro Viceroy Cigarettes Commercials". Archived from the original on 2021-12-21 – via YouTube.
  13. ^ "Outrageous vintage cigarette ads". CBS News. 27 July 2014.
  14. ^ a b c Hodinkee, Jeff Stein (19 May 2015). "How Cigarettes And Racing Made Heuer A Household Name In America".
  15. ^ "Comparison of Two Viceroy Autavias Reference 1163V and Reference 11630". www.onthedash.com.
  16. ^ "Absolutely Everything About the Heuer Autavia "Viceroy" Chronograph « On The Dash". thoughts.onthedash.com.
  17. ^ "In-Depth: How The Number Three Cigarette In America Made Heuer A Household Name".
  18. ^ Brenner, Marie (May 1996). "The Man Who Knew Too Much". Vanity Fair. p. 4. Archived from the original on 2014-04-12. Retrieved 2012-11-21.
  19. ^ Kessler, D. A. (1994). "The control and manipulation of nicotine in cigarettes". Tobacco Control. 3 (4): 362–369. doi:10.1136/tc.3.4.362. PMC 1759375.
  20. ^ "Deposition of Jeffrey Wigand, Ph.D." Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. University of California, San Francisco. November 14, 1996. Retrieved November 20, 2012.
  21. ^ "1972 Parnelli Jones #9 Viceroy". 2013-05-18.
  22. ^ "Parnelli Jones' Museum". russthompsonracing.com.
  23. ^ "INDY & F 5000". Pinterest.
  24. ^ "Cars of Al Unser Sr. - Conceptcarz.com".
  25. ^ "Car Collection Photos". vpjracing.com.
  26. ^ "Parnelli VPJ4 Cosworth - Chassis: 001 - 2012 Monaco Historic Grand Prix".
  27. ^ "1974 Viceroy Vels Parnelli VPJ4 Canadian GP Mario Andretti". Ghost Models.
  28. ^ "The World's most recently posted photos of 1975 and parnelli - Flickr Hive Mind". hiveminer.com.
  29. ^ "Hongkong - List of Viceroy Cup Finalists". RSSSF.
  30. ^ "1985 South China v Seiko (Viceroy Cup Final) Hong Kong - #282096213". Worthpoint.
  31. ^ Boyle, Peter (23 March 2018). Tobacco and Public Health: Science and Policy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198526872 – via Google Books.
  32. ^ ""Ode to Viceroy": Mac DeMarco's Influence on Interest in Viceroy Cigarettes". January 2018.
  33. ^ "Question in the Form of An Answer: An Interview With Mac DeMarco". 14 February 2014.
  34. ^ "10 things to know about Mac DeMarco : Music : Smile Politely". smilepolitely.com. 29 October 2014.
  35. ^ a b "Mac DeMarco – Ode to Viceroy".
  36. ^ "BrandViceroy - Cigarettes Pedia". www.cigarettespedia.com.
  37. ^ "Viceroy". www.zigsam.at.
  38. ^ "Brands". www.cigarety.by.
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