in an office memorandum:
This armistice is very bad news indeed. Had we been able to keep the fighting going until 1921 or even 1920, we might have become the top tobacco company in the country. As it is, peace has reared its ugly head, and we must make the best of it. But I cannot help feeling that in ending the war our politicians have, as usual, stabbed us in the back.
Charleston Snuff, and Other Disasters
The period between the world wars was one of growth and consolidation. The 1918 armistice meant the end of Lady Fantasy. She was far too wholesome and old-fashioned for the Jazz Age. Men no longer dreamed of a Gibson girl – they were beginning to dream instead of a girl who liked to drink gibsons (concocted from bathtub gin), a girl who knew how to flap, how to neck, how to dance the Charleston on the wing of a biplane.
The packet with Lady Fantasy and her slogan “Fragrant and Graceful” (F.A.G.) had to go. Somehow the word “fag” had been debased to a pejorative term for a homosexual. Clearly it was time to scrap Lady Fantasy and start over. But how?
Augustus was getting old. He realized he could not run the company forever, so he began grooming his son LeRoy to take over. He started him in the advertising department. There young LeRoy plunged in, eager to show his stuff.
The trouble was, LeRoy Badcock didn’t have any stuff to show. Under his direction, GST in the 1920s saw many false starts. Lucky Lindycigarettes lasted a year, mainly because Lindbergh (who didn’t smoke) never endorsed them. Then came a series of disastrous product names. Charleston Snuff appeared just as interest in the Charleston was disappearing.
LeRoy Badcock
“They’re all dancing something new, called the Black Bottom,” LeRoy complained. “I don’t suppose we could bring out a Black Bottom Snuff?”
“Doesn’t convey quite the right image, sir,” a chorus of advertising lackeys informed him.
“Damn! I suppose we need to rethink.”
Nothing seemed to go right for LeRoy. He launched Houdini cigars in 1926 (the year Houdini died shortly after an escape). He launched Tutanhkamen cut plug (which seemed as popular as a mummy’s curse). Finally in 1929, he launched a new cigar called Wall Street (the crash made it a national joke).
Augustus wasn’t laughing. He informed Le-Roy that he had one more chance to bring a successful product to market. “Son, maybe your problem is all this modernism. We don’t need it. I say, stick to the old tried and trusted products. Remember, a comely young woman can always sell a seegar. Of course it’s your decision, my boy.”
It was 1936 before LeRoy Badcock came up with his next product, a cigar as new, sophisticated, utterly modern as that latest mode of transportation, the airship.
They’re always saying that zeppelins are
cigar-shaped
. By jing, so are our cigars! Why don’t we cash in on that? They say the zeppelins are quiet, smooth, elegant, real tasteful, and just the thing for the upper crust. We too must hammer on those themes. “Relax with a high-class cigar,” stuff like that. We can make our new cigar as exciting as the Graf Zeppelin itself.
Reactions to this odd memo varied. Some thought it was a stroke of genius. The Freudian connotations of zeppelins (the longest objects ever sent into the sky) would perhaps carry over to the new cigar from General Snuff:
The Hindenburg Cigar
The Ride of Your Life
A Smoke to Remember
If you are fortunate enough to take passage on the world’s largest and most luxurious Airship, the Hindenburg, you’ll experience a quiet, smooth ride in tasteful, elegant surroundings. The whole atmosphere is one of tranquillity.
That’s what we aim for too in our newest creation, the Hindenburg Cigar. It’s the longest, most gracefully tapered cigar in the world. One puff, and you’ll experience all the smoothness, the good taste, the elegance of a ride on the famous Airship.
So if you can, take a ride on the great