BORIS BURDA: How to increase sales of all sorts of junk
Didier Descouens. Female tobacco hawk moth (Manduca sexta). Collection of mathematician Laurent Schwartz / wikipedia.org
ATTENTION — THE CORRECT ANSWER!
One of the chapters in Allen Carr’s book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking is titled The Advantages of Smoking. Can you recite its entire content from memory?
ATTENTION — THE CORRECT ANSWER!
That’s easy — it’s a blank page. Not a single word!
THE PLAGUE FROM AMERICA
T
he first depictions of smokers in Central American temples are more than 3,000 years old. Back then, the Aztecs and the Maya regarded tobacco as a gift from the gods, helping them communicate with the divine (in a way, they weren’t entirely wrong — according to modern data, smoking takes at least seven years off one’s life, but they meant something quite different…).
Tobacco almost miraculously survived the Great Columbian Exchange: Columbus chewed some leaves from a bundle gifted by the Indigenous people, spat them out in disgust, and ordered them thrown away. But his sailors had already learned from the locals that tobacco wasn’t for eating but for smoking; they found pipes somewhere and gathered tobacco leaves and seeds to smoke back home — to our misfortune…
In Europe, tobacco was not only smoked — doctors decided that this poison could also harm diseases. The French ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nicot (after whom nicotine is named), presented it to Queen Catherine de’ Medici as a remedy for migraines. Those who have read Robinson Crusoe will remember that he cured himself of an unknown illness with tobacco (pure fiction, of course).
These misconceptions have survived to our day. When I was 19, during a KVN recording in Moscow, I got a terrible toothache, and a teammate advised me to smoke — «it’ll help right away». I smoked a cigarette for the first time in my life, and it really did help — I felt so disgusted that I could only dream of returning to my toothache. Maybe that’s how tobacco «healed»?
In 1501, the first smoker was punished — Columbus’s sailor Rodrigo de Jerez was jailed for seven years for blowing smoke out of his mouth (obvious collusion with the devil!). That was just the beginning: in 17th-century Russia, smokers were flogged, had their noses cut off, and sometimes were even executed. Unfortunately, under Peter I, a passionate smoker, everything changed…
The growing demand for tobacco led to the rise of numerous plantations in Virginia (USA), Cuba, Brazil, and even parts of Europe — tobacco grew perfectly well there, too. It was smoked the North American way — by packing shredded leaves into pipes — or the South American way — by rolling leaves into cigars. Complicated and expensive — but fashionable!
NEW IDEAS IN SMOKING
Tobacco quickly became so expensive and valuable that the poor in Seville (home to the world’s first tobacco factory) wouldn’t let a single discarded butt go to waste — they picked them up, and the remaining tobacco, still smoldering, was wrapped in a tobacco leaf and sold to smokers. This early version of a cigar came to be called a cigarilla.
An even more radical step was taken by a team of Egyptian artillerymen in 1832, who, to speed up their firing process, came up with the idea of pre-packing gunpowder into paper cartridges. As a reward, they were given tobacco, and they thought: «Why not do the same with tobacco as with gunpowder?» Those were real cigarettes — only handmade.
The Egyptian soldiers shared their invention with their Turkish counterparts, and during the Crimean War, the Turks demonstrated to their British and French allies this convenient way of smoking — without the hassle of filling a pipe or spending money on expensive cigars. After that, it was only a matter of time before the idea crossed the Atlantic.
In the United States, smoking was not only allowed but even fashionable — it gave boastful gentlemen a chance to flaunt their diamond rings as they lifted their pipes to their lips. In Europe, countries buying tobacco from the U.S. didn’t ban it but instead turned it into a state monopoly and made good money from it. Whoever could make smoking more convenient would strike gold!
THE CIGARETTE MACHINE
Cigarettes, which had also begun to be sold in the United States, were hand-rolled — an experienced worker could make only four cigarettes per minute. This made production slow and expensive, so in 1875, the tobacco company Allen & Ginter offered a $75,000 prize (equivalent to over $2,000,000 today!) to anyone who could automate the cigarette-making process.
Motivated by the prize, a student named James Albert Bonsack dropped out of college in 1878 and began inventing a machine to solve the problem. His first prototype was destroyed in a fire, and the second was rejected by the client — the machine tore the paper, cut off parts of the cigarette, crumpled it, and, in truth, the company wasn’t too eager to pay anyway…
But businessman James Duke spared no expense — he ordered two of these machines, bought the patent Bonsack had received in 1881, and even assigned an experienced mechanic, William O’Brien, to fix the inventor’s design flaws. The machine then worked at a staggering speed — 200 cigarettes per minute, effectively replacing 50 workers!
In 1884 alone, Duke’s company produced 744 million cigarettes on these machines — more than all U.S. factories had made the previous year. By 1888, Duke had dismissed all employees who hand-rolled cigarettes. Later, building on this industrial foundation, he created the giant monopoly known as the American Tobacco Company.
IS THERE ANY BENEFIT TO SMOKING?
Thanks to James Albert Bonsack, the countless descendants of his machine now produce around 5.5 trillion cigarettes every year — nearly a thousand for every person on the planet, including babies and non-smokers, not to mention cigars and pipe tobacco separately. So maybe smoking has at least some benefit — and not just horror?
Bismarck’s doctor often scolded his patient for never being seen without a cigar in his mouth, though tobacco was bad for him. Bismarck would reply that his main duty as a diplomat was to blow smoke into his interlocutors’ eyes. No wonder ladies at Peter the Great’s assemblies complained that the room was so full of smoke they couldn’t see anything — diplomacy again, I suppose…
The smoking president of the Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman, once openly declared that smoking was good for the country — smoking pensioners die earlier and save the pension funds money. In delight, Philip Morris even presented the Czech government with a report on the economic benefits of smoking — though the government, wisely, chose not to endorse it.
Smokers themselves believe that smoking relieves inner tension, boosts confidence, helps with socializing, improves work focus, stimulates thinking, enhances creativity, preserves emotional balance, wards off boredom, dulls hunger, and prevents weight gain. Can you argue with them?
However, I do know of one person for whom smoking truly brought benefit — even saved his life: chief rocket designer Mikhail Yangel. In 1950, during a test of his new rocket, he stepped away to have a smoke in a bunker… and the rocket suddenly exploded! Many people died, but he survived — so didn’t smoking help him?
HE TRIED — BUT TO WHAT END!
Let’s be honest — most governments are far from thrilled with Bonsack’s invention and are trying their best to limit the use of its products. In Ireland, anyone caught smoking in a public place faces a fine of €3,000. And in New Zealand, they’ve decided not to sell tobacco at all to anyone born after 2009 — under any circumstances.
The great thinkers haven’t been fond of smoking either. According to Simenon, «You start smoking to prove you’re a man, and then you try to quit to prove you’re a man». Emerson remarked that smoking «lets you believe you’re doing something when you’re doing nothing». And Goethe simply said, «Smoking makes you stupid».
Sometimes, it’s too late for regret. The famous actor Yul Brynner died of lung cancer and, before his death, recorded a message saying: «Now that I’m gone, please stop smoking… I am dead now because I smoked too much. So to everyone watching me — don’t tempt fate».
It’s a pity about Bonsack, of course — he truly did his best… But as a result, in England alone, one bartender dies every week — even non-smokers — simply from working in smoke-filled rooms. So what, should we stop inventing altogether? Of course not — keep inventing, but think carefully about how your invention will be used… and preferably in advance!
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