R.J Reynolds – Smokeless cigarettes

Smoking is an old habit of the world. When, in 1988, Americans began to understand that tobacco could be dangerous, and so could the passive smoking, R.J Reynolds (Camel, Pall Mall, Winston) decided to invest 325 million dollars in a smokeless cigarette. The idea was that, if the cigarette didn’t release any smoke, then this cigarette would wealthier for both the smoker and the people around. The cigarette is baptized Premier. 

The Premier cigarette

But dreams don’t always become true and even if it does its part of the contract, the Premier cigarette faces a lot of issues. First of all, according to the consumers, it tastes like hell, and the first consumer to admit it is… Reynolds’s CEO. Then, due to its technology, the cigarette is really hard to light and a match isn’t enough: when you wanted to smoke a Premier, the lighter was the minimum required. Premier works indeed with a charcoal that heats the tobacco, so that it doesn’t burn and release smoke. This is where we meet the last main problem: the inhalation is really difficult and requires a lot of efforts.

To finish, one of the most pleasant aspects in smoking, according to smokers, is precisely the smoke. This product had therefore no advantage for smokers. After 4 months of weak sales the Premier cigarette stopped being sold.

However, Reynolds, unlike the other brands that we saw before, did not understand this lesson: a few years later, in the middle of the 90s, the anti-smoking campaigns keep increasing in intensity. Reynolds decided that this was (again) the right time to launch a smokeless cigarette. This is how, in 1996, the company invests 125 million dollars to improve the Premier cigarette, and release the Eclipse cigarette. But this is a new failure. Stressing on the healthier and cleaner aspects of its new products due to the charcoal and the heated tobacco (same method than the Premier cigarette), Reynolds didn’t anticipate that some studies would attack it because of the toxins released by the charcoal when it burns, especially when the smoker inhales hard. In addition to all of this, smokers still did like the smoke of a cigarette… And this is a new fail. But it is still sold today, and became more appreciated since smoking is restricted in most of the public areas.

In spite of these failures Reynolds is the second tobacco brand on the American market with 33% market shares and is now looking for becoming the e-cigarette market leader. It recently fused with Lorillard (which owned the e-cigarette brand Blu) to achieve this goal. And this is how, after 50 years to wait for a successful healthier cigarette, Reynolds has the serious opportunity to finally triumph.

Morale of the story: Bear and forbear!