Lucky Strike launches innovative Marketing campaigns in Japan

Japan is certainly the king of creative marketing, with no corner of the market untouched by new and creative campaigns. Tobacco is no exception. While tobacco companies abroad are often completely restricted from advertising at all, advertising here is cutting-edge and ubiquitous. POS campaigns are a trip back in time to when American companies could give away free items with purchases, but stray away from cheap-looking t-shirts, sunglasses, or beer can “coolies” that Camel, Winston, and the others tended to give away. Free items usually take the form of lighters, keychains, cell-phone accessories, and even miniature art books!

Lucky Strike of Genius:

Lucky Strike has been the most hip as of late, with very artistic and creative packaging. One campaign (my favorite) branded the packaging around the theme of photography. Two packs of cigarettes were packaged in what looked like a package for a disposable camera with a similar display rack. Inside, you found packs that were designed to look like small digital cameras. There were several versions, each with unique photo “art” on the back. Also included was a roll of Lucky Strike “film” that was actually a cleverly packaged lighter.

Another current Lucky Strike campaign (and an industry-wide recent trend) is to sell half-packs of ten cigarettes at exactly half price. This makes it easier to carry them in your pocket, while not losing money for only buying half of a pack. There are about ten different versions of the half-pack, each with unique graphics. Other brands have gone a similar way with full packs that pull apart into two separate packs.

Trend impact:
With Japan’s tendency to follow the United States when it comes to regulation of products, nice campaigns like this may not be around much longer. Let’s hope they leave the choices up to the consumers, and the marketing to the marketers.