Vowing to push ahead despite recent setbacks in marketing its new cigarette brands, Uptown and Dakota, to blacks and blue-collar women respectively, R.J. Reynolds announced today that it has developed a new brand for yet another target audience: Stanley Milton, a 34-year-old real estate developer living in Skokie.
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“After exhaustive demographic studies,” an RJR spokesperson, Lynda Burke, announced, “we have come up with the last person in America who we believe is ‘protest proof’: Stanley Milton is white, male, educated, and affluent. He already smokes, and what’s more, he’s aware of its presumed health hazard. Furthermore, he’s indicated to friends he doesn’t believe cigarette manufacturers are liable for damages in lawsuits from smokers who develop cancer.”
When reporters reacted skeptically, Burke added, “He’s young, about to get married, and our research indicates he plans on having three children, all of whom we hope will turn into smokers. Add in Milton’s extended family and friends and the business associates who admire him, and you have all the makings of a monster brand.
Insiders say that RJR has been angered by its recent marketing setbacks, and that Milties are an attempt to regain the offensive. An official who refused to be identified said, “When other smokers see Milton lighting up a brand with his own name on it, they’re going to wonder, ‘Hey, how come that jerk warrants his own cigarette? What about me?’ Before you know it, smokers around the country will be demanding their own personalized brands, and we’ll be there waiting.
