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Big Stuff

Marlboro was the biggest global brand to 'enter' India in years --- but almost nobody knows about it.

By Moinak Mitra

This was supposed to be big news: Marlboro's entry to India. Marlboro, the famous red-roof brand that once rivaled red-cap Coca-Cola as the world's top brand on Interbrand's famous chart. Marlboro, the cigarette that started life in America as a ladies' lipstick-tipped smoke. Marlboro, the brand that was famously repositioned as a male smoke after a major testosterone implant from Leo Burnett, the legendary adman who gave it its now-famous cowboy imagery. Marlboro, the brand that has enriched lawyers almost as much as shareholders (silicon-implant legal-eagles would have been so much happier had they had such a famous brand to attack). Marlboro, the brand that entered the vast Indian market with a whimper instead of a bang.

The brand, which sells 4 of every 10 smoke sticks sold in America, is owned by a company called Altria. This is the new name for Philip Morris, a foods company that also sells cigarettes that everyone thought is a cigarette company that also sells food. This is a misperception fuelled by the company's brand portfolio, which includes seven of the top 20 international cigarette brands. Marlboro, of course, is the world's leading brand. And there's also L&M, which has grown to become the world's third largest cigarette brand.

Altria's presence in India has always been too insignificant for it to have any sort of public image as a corporation. Even the Marlboro launch is what's termed a 'soft launch', involving minimal domestic-level investment. Marlboro has entered India through an agreement struck by Philip Morris International, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, with Barakat Foods & Tobacco Pvt Ltd, which is to distribute the cigarettes in India under a non-exclusive distribution agreement.

What does the company do? It imports the cigarettes. And distributes them.

That doesn't mean you will see a sudden increase in the famous red-roof cartons on cigarette stalls. Grey-route Marlboro has always been available in most of India's big cities, so a few extra cartons of Marlboro Full Flavor and Lights will hardly make any noticeable difference.

No matter. The company is confident of success, however modestly defined. Says Ajit Sahgal, General Manager, Philip Morris Services India, "We are confident that our imported Marlboro will compete successfully in the Indian market by quickly gaining popularity among adult smokers."

Gaining? Marlboro's popularity in India has never been doubted. It has been smoked in upmarket India for a decade or more, and will continue to be. Formula One racing live on TV, no doubt, has heightened its brand salience among the few interested in Schumacher & Co's racetrack exploits. If tobacco advertising were to get banned, as the government is threatening again, Marlboro will perhaps be the only major non-ITC premium brand to make headway nonetheless. Such is its brand power. The cowboy iconography enjoys widespread recognition - at least in the 45-million-odd satellite-TV households that are taken to constitute the middle-class.

In fact, the iconography is so well known that India's best acclaimed cautionary ad of recent times, a cancer-prevention ad made by O&M, features the Marlboro Man --- standing against the natural rocky relief of an American desertscape, his horse dead on its side. Killed. Not by an ambush by Navajo Indians. Not by a giant Bryan Adams. But by 'Secondhand smoke'.

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