Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 13, 1994 TAG: 9412130032
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N. C. LENGTH: Medium
So, there's this guy Dave, lives in Concord, N.C., drives a yellow '57 pickup.
Started his own tobacco company this year, just like that. Calls it Dave's Tobacco Co.
``It all started with a few tobacco seeds and a dream,'' says the ad copy for Dave's brand cigarettes. ``Dave was fed up with cheap, fast-burning smokes. Instead of just getting mad, he did something about it.''
And he promises customers: ``If you don't like 'em, I'll eat 'em.''
Easier said than done.
There is no Dave.
There is no Dave's Tobacco Co.
``It's the tale of a fictional underdog,'' said Karen Daragan, a spokeswoman for Philip Morris - Dave's creator. ``It's a grass-roots approach with a kind of down-home theme.''
Philip Morris, whose Marlboro Man personifies the world's best-selling cigarette, invented the homespun entrepreneur with hopes of grabbing more sales in the booming market for cheap smokes. From their start in the early '80s, no-glitz cigarettes have grown to claim a third of the sales in the $40 billion U.S. cigarette market.
Discount brands sap profits because they sell for as little as a third of the price of top brand names. Philip Morris, which has about 1,800 workers in Cabarrus County, narrowed the gap last year by cutting Marlboro's price 20 percent. The move paid off with increased Marlboro sales.
With its Basic cigarettes, Philip Morris bucked traditional discount-brand marketing and created one of the best-selling, low-priced cigarettes. Like brand-name cigarettes, Basic is heavily advertised and has promotional gear such as playing cards and T-shirts. Dave's, introduced last month, is another effort to make the no-name a big name so smokers will pay more.
``The strategy behind Dave's is to develop trademarks ... so that consumers are basing their purchasing decisions on brand name rather than on price alone,'' Daragan said.
She said media speculation is ``just dead wrong'' that Dave's rips off the success of Dave Thomas, the folksy founder and pitchman for the Wendy's hamburger chain.
Dave is just a simple tobacco farmer with a professionally scripted life story.
``Now Dave usually markets his cigarettes to the folks in his own neck of the woods,'' says one ad. ``But this year, Dave's crop was huge! Gigantic! UNBELIEVABLE! Big, fat leaves packed with downright down-home flavor. Way too much to sell in Concord.''
Truth be told, Dave isn't even trying to sell his butts in Concord.
Philip Morris is test marketing Dave's out West, around Denver.
The company - by far the largest U.S. cigarette maker - is so darn sure Dave's will be a success that, according to ads, ``We're bettin' the farm on it.''
They're counting on smokers to embrace the idea of a little guy - somebody just like them - trying to make it.
``One man got it right,'' says a package insert.
``Consumers enjoy the story that Dave's is produced by an individual whom they can admire and trust to make a quality cigarette,'' says a retailers' brochure, which urges using special racks for the cigarettes. ``Dave's home-grown smokes don't mix with the corporate cigarettes.''
The company says it's too soon to say how Dave's are doing, but so far, the pitch hasn't produced a winner.
``If they weren't giving it away, it wouldn't be selling,'' said a cigarette wholesaler, who asked not to be identified because he doesn't want to irritate Dave - or Philip Morris. ``We are selling nothing but the buy-one, get-one frees.''
Heavy advertising, from billboards to store banners, has people talking about Dave's. But they don't seem to be catching on that it's a cigarette.
``They don't know whether it's a store or what,'' said Greg Flaks, president of S.R. Flaks Co., a wholesaler in Colorado Springs, Colo. ``I'm not sure the advertising is really getting the message across.''
by CNB