Origin of the Brand:

Salem brand of cigarette got introduced in the year 1956 RJR and has the unique credit of being the first cigarette introduced with a Filter Tip. Salem and Winston brands have been derived from the word Winston-Salem, North Carolina being the city where RJR, Company Headquarter was established and commenced its manufacturing activities.

After introduction of the cigarette brand there was counter publicity by MAD Magazine with a badly thought of slogan “ Sailem don’t inhalem.

Promotion Activities:

By the end of 1960 the advertisement of the Salem cigarette brand saw full activity in television and radio commercial advertisements, which was in the form of a little songs portraying “you can take Salem out of country but cannot take country out of salem” & “ Spring time …it happens every salem”. This was a period prior to the enforcement of Prohibition effective from January, 1971. In the year1970 RJR shifted its publicity theme to freshness of the taste with menthol relating to themes of water and Purity of Nature in the background natural wonderful scenes.

Salem proved its worth being the among best selling cigarette brands in the territory of US for many decades, which now has been overtaken by other menthol containing brands like Newport & Kool.

Diversification of Brand:

Salem has further diversified into producing two versions of its cigarettes named Green Label and Black Label, differentiating on the milder smooth taste and Strong coupled with Harshness of the taste thus providing coverage two different market segments thus broadening its reach to more customers.

In the year 1990, to give a further boost the Packing Materials used were made superior and with the innovation of sliding opening of the pack in the case of Black Label brand containing a single cigarette in the pack with Dark green filter and with The Lucky name associated with it. The Cigarette came upside down from the box by a flip. The cigarette could be smoked till the last.

Adapting to Local Situation:

In the marketed of Japan during August 1995 R.J. Reynolds introduced a “clean cigarette” and nick named it to Salem Pianissimo, with the aim of reducing the odor of cigarette at the same time creating a pleasant smelling and tasting cigarette in a society, which stands by it’s cleanliness as their highest priority.

With the banning of Cigarette advertising in TV media in US there was a comedy show “Laugh-In” serial got staged telling the viewers, how the cigarette company shall relay to their message to their customers covered under a guise like “Let’s take coupla boats to Newport and salem” 

Sponsoring Sports Events:

Till the beginning of year 2000 Salem Sponsored Sport events like Hong Kong Open, ATP Tennis and the events saw the participation of top rank game players of very high caliber and proficiency of the game at these events and being sponsored were titled Salem open. Salem also many concerts in the Asian market.

In the year 2001, the legislation was passed putting restrictions tobacco sponsoring in Hong Kong, the tournament proved to be of controversial nature due to name Perrior got included in its official logo. It was blamed by the by the anti smoking campaining organization that the consorters and organizers have collusion taking undue benefit of the loophole in the clause related to sponsorship.

Salem now has made available in the market their new brands named light and ultralight.

Advertising in the Changed Scenario:

The Salem Song theme based advertising continued on radio during 1986-89 and on commercial radio during 1991-1995.