YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY (1968-1986)

Just as the feminism movement hit in the late 1960's, The Philip Morris Company introduced San Francisco Bay Area women to a new 'women's only' cigarette. The Leo Burnett Advertising Agency of Chicago produced a series of tongue-in-cheek magazine ads for Virginia Slims Cigarettes that playfully pitted men against women. Phony sepia-toned photos, picturing the sorry lot of a circa 1900's woman, were juxtaposed against color photographs of a far happier modern woman wearing stylish contemporary clothing. The test market began July 30, 1968, then expanded to all fifty states just 28 days later. By 1969, the first full year of Virginia Slims Cigarettes national distribution, sales were a very respectable .9 percent. American women now had a cigarette they could call their own.