Box Vox

packaging as content

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April 1, 2011

The Tareyton Cigarettes Anthro-Pack Mascot

Earlier this week we looked at Grape-Nuts ads with anthropomorphic boxes, and a later ad in which they compared their cereal’s new box to “a good old friend in a gay, new dress.”

It now appears that Tareyton Cigarettes covered some of the same ground with their anthro-pack named, “Wagner” sponsoring the 1950s children’s puppet show, “The Gay Cavalcade.” (above)

Wagner, however, was a badly-drawn and ill-conceived mascot that wound up causing the company considerable grief…

People might remember Tareyton Cigarettes as the brand that went bankrupt due to an urban legend back in the 60’s. A rumor convinced people that the Tareyton company was a front for Adolph Hitler, who was living in Argentina and running a tobacco empire to finance an army to re-take Europe. The only evidence for this was the unfortunate design of their company mascot, “Wagner” seen on the cigarette packs themselves, but it was enough to destroy sales when the gossip got around.

Hoverboy and Hitler Cigarettes!
by Ty Templeton, January 20, 2011

(See also: Hoverboy.com and Martha Stewart & Tareyton Cigarettes)

Further evidence of Tareyton’s mascot debacle can be found on TobaccoDocuments.org:

TobaccoDoc-490

I managed to locate one of these brass “mascot lighters” on eBay…

TareytonMascotLighter

See also: Packaging & Cigarette Lighters and Packaging Zippos

(From brass cigarette lighters to brass knuckles, after the fold…)


But seriously, all April-foolish kidding aside, “Wagner” is a fictional product mascot and the Tareyton company did not go bankrupt. There actually were Tareyton “mascot lighters”—only they had nothing to do with a vintage anthropomorphic cigarette pack or with the Mascot brand of cigarette lighter…

They were part of Tareyton’s “College Program” in which promotional cigarette lighters were co-branded with Tareyton’s logo on one side and various college team mascots on the other…

TareytonAlabama

You are looking at a nice vintage advertising lighter that features an ad for Tareyton cigarettes and Alabama Crimson Tide. This lighter is in outstanding, unfired condition and is difficult to find, especially this nice. It comes in the original box. The maker of the lighter is Hadson.

Via: Worthpoint

Another aspect of Tareyton’s college cigarettes promotion was the use of student “Reps” to distribute sample cigarette packs on campus and ads in college newspapers like the one below from Albany’s State College News, September 29, 1961…

Tareyton’s Dual Filter in duas partes divisa est! Slugging Junius (Pretty Boy) Cassius takes off the brass knucks to enjoy his favorite smoke. Says Pretty Boy, “Ecce Tareyton, one filter cigarette that really delivers the gustibus. Try Tareytons. Next time you buy cigarettes, take a couple of packs vobiscum.”

CollegeAd

Strangly, this ad also connects us back to the Greco-Roman physical-culture thing that early Grape-Nuts advertising seemed to embrace. (See: Anthropomorphised box of Grape-Nuts wearing gladiator sandals)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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