Growing public concern about the Kool cigarettes
Kool (stylized as KOOL ) is an American brand of menthol cigarettes , currently owned and manufactured by ITG Brands LLC , a subsidiary of Imperial Tobacco Company. Kool cigarettes sold outside the United States are manufactured by British American Tobacco.
Introduced in 1933 by Brown and Williamson as an unfiltered 70mm “regular” cigarette, Kool cigarettes enjoyed and continued success throughout the 1950s. A 1953 poll by Roper found that two percent of white Americans and five percent of African Americans preferred the Kool brand.
Growing public concern about the health risks associated with smoking led Brown and Williamson to release filtered Kool strains: a 85-millimeter “king-size” version in the 1960s, followed by a 100-millimeter, or “long ” Version in the 1970s. The 1980s saw the introduction of Kool lights and losing market share to other menthol brands such as Newport.
In 2003, Brown and Williamson bought RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company and made Kool a Reynolds brand. The iconic green and white pack, virtually unchanged for some seventy years, was revised and the original unfiltered Kool cigarette was discontinued. These changes did little to increase sales.
In 2015, a merger between Reynolds American and Lorillard Tobacco Company brought the Kool brand into Imperial Tobacco Company’s real estate portfolio. Kool cigarettes advertising began with the character of the penguin “Willie” who was portrayed in a variety of professions, including doctor, soldier and cook. In the early 1950s, the company placed a series of stickers on the front doors that read “Come in… it’s Kool inside”, indicating that the space was air-conditioned.
By the early 1960s, the image of the cartoon penguin was falling out of use, and Kool instead began marketing its cigarettes by associating the taste of menthol with outdoor scenes depicting water or snow. Elaine Devry and John Clarke (actor) were appearing in Kool’s commercials at the time as the smoker whose day was made better by a passerby changing her car’s flat tire. However, this was decades before Jeffrey Wigand ‘s exposé.