SPEAKER_03: Amazing, fascinating stories of inventions, ideas and innovations. Yes, this is the podcast about the things that have helped to shape our lives. Podcasts from the BBC World Service are supported by advertising.
SPEAKER_02: Hello, I'm Emma Twin. I'm a virtual twin for Dassault Système. My job, simulate multiple medical conditions on myself to develop new treatments for all. Basically, I'm like a crash test dummy for healthcare. It may sound like science fiction, but in fact, it's just science. I explain it all on my LinkedIn account. Look up Emma Twin from Dassault Système.
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SPEAKER_06: Terrible. Stick in one's throat.
SPEAKER_01: That's one smoker's dismissal of Camel cigarettes before taking a blind taste test in 1920s and that's how he knew the cigarette he was smoking must be a Lucky Strike, his usual brand. Lucky as you see, go down easy and smooth, just like this one. He was, of course, unwittingly smoking a Camel. Nowadays the awesome power of branding is hardly news. Back then it was only just beginning to become apparent. Early big name brands included Kellogg's cereal, Campbell's soup and Colgate toothpaste. But nowhere was branding more crucial than with cigarettes. Why did cigarettes lead the way? The starring role goes to an inventor from Virginia called James Bonsack. In 1881, when Bonsack patented his new machine, tobacco had been around for centuries but cigarettes remained a niche product. The market was dominated by pipes, cigars and chewing tobacco. Bonsack's father owned a wool factory. The son looked at the factory's carding machine – carding is a step in turning fibres into yarn – and wondered if he could adapt it for rolling cigarettes. The contraption he came up with weighed a ton. It churned out two hundred cigarettes a minute – almost as many as a human, rolling by hand, could make in an hour. The significance was clear to tobacco entrepreneur James Buchanan Duke, who promptly cut a deal with Bonsack and set about cornering the cigarette market. But Duke's opportunity was also a challenge. He could make lots of cigarettes, but could he sell them? Cigarettes had an image problem. They were seen as lower status than cigars, which crucially were proving altogether harder to mechanise. Duke wasn't daunted. He saw what he had to do – advertise. By 1889 he was spending some 20% of his revenues on promotion – unheard of at the time. And it worked. By 1923 cigarettes had become the most popular way for Americans to consume tobacco. Some early ad campaigns would now raise an eyebrow. Lucky strikes, for instance, were pitched as an aid to slimming.
SPEAKER_06: Reach for a lucky instead of a sweet.
SPEAKER_01: That tagline was accompanied by an image of a svelte young lady. Sweetmakers were outraged. One advertised back.
SPEAKER_00: Do not let anyone tell you that a cigarette can take the place of a piece of candy. The cigarette will inflame your tonsils, poison with nicotine every organ of your body, and dry up your blood. Nails in your coffin.
SPEAKER_01: But who would you trust for health advice? Candy companies or medical professionals?
SPEAKER_06: 20,679 physicians say luckies are less irritating.
SPEAKER_01: That was a lucky strike campaign. The blind taste tests suggested that those claims about throat irritation were spurious. And in the 1940s a more systematic investigation by Reader's Digest magazine reached the same conclusion. In terms of health, it makes no earthly difference which brand you buy. In the 1950s American regulators decided they shouldn't allow cigarette adverts to reference doctors or body parts. It looked like a crisis for the advertisers but it turned out to be liberating. A realisation dramatised in the television series Mad Men. This is the greatest advertising opportunity since the invention of cereal.
SPEAKER_06: We have six identical companies making six identical products. We can say anything we want.
SPEAKER_01: The ad man there, Don Draper, is fictional but his insight was on point. When products are essentially indistinguishable, companies could compete on price but that will erode their profit margins. Much better to compete on branding. Make people think the products are different so you can appeal more effectively to different buyers. Economists talk about the consumer surplus produced by a product. That's the enjoyment the product produces, less the money you have to give up to afford it. Does it matter if that enjoyment comes from your appreciation of a product's qualities or your fond beliefs about the brand? In other words, if you confidently misidentify camels as lucky strikes in a blind taste test, should we take less seriously the enjoyment you say you get from lucky strikes? No doubt we can be relaxed about this question when it comes to
SPEAKER_01: cornflakes or soup or toothpaste. If you're swayed by adverts for Kellogg's or Campbell's or Colgate, where's the harm? But with a product as deadly as cigarettes, we might worry that the consumer experience is bound up with the branding. Many countries have duly banned television adverts and sports sponsorship. Tobacco companies say there's no compelling evidence these bans work and that might be more persuasive if they hadn't spent years saying there was no compelling evidence that cigarettes caused cancer or heart disease. In many places, smoking is now in decline but in some poorer countries with looser regulations, it's a different story. Around the world, still about six trillion cigarettes are made every year. Put them end to end and every four months, you'd have one long enough to light on the sun. For example, in China, in the half century after Chairman Mao took power, per capita cigarette sales went up roughly tenfold. The China National Tobacco Corporation is the country's most profitable company and it sells 98% of cigarettes. It's state-owned and contributes up to a tenth of government revenues. Perhaps it's no surprise then that China has been late to the game with restrictions on advertising. As recently as 2005, adverts assured, smoking removes your troubles and worries. One brand warned, quitting smoking
SPEAKER_06: would bring you misery, shortening your life. That brand's name? Long life. Soon after,
SPEAKER_01: the China National Tobacco Corporation embarked on a new policy, premiumisation. China was getting richer so why not persuade consumers to pay more for their smokes? It launched new premium brands which adverts touted as less harmful, higher quality and more prestigious for gift giving. And it worked. Before, discount brands outsold premium brands ten to one. After nine years, they were near parity. According to one study, just 10% of smokers in China are aware that brands labelled light and low tar are no less harmful to your health than other cigarettes. It seems they haven't read the Reader's Digest and the power of the brand to create credulity is still as strong as ever.
SPEAKER_04: Dr. Rooja promised to make the world rich. We create the world around this coin. Her company made
SPEAKER_04: billions from global investors. She called herself the crypto queen. And then two years ago,
SPEAKER_04: she disappeared. How can this happen? Join me, Jamie Bartlett, as I search for Dr. Rooja and the truth about her company, OneCoin. Kidnapping, killing. It starts to get very scary,
SPEAKER_02: very, very fast. The missing crypto queen. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.
