Life, 1929-02-01 · page 33 of 40
Life — February 1, 1929 — page 33: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **Lucky Strike cigarette advertisement**, not satire—it's a genuine 1929 marketing campaign featuring composer George Gershwin as an endorser. The ad exploits early 20th-century anxieties about weight and appearance by positioning cigarettes as appetite suppressants: smoking replaces eating sweets, helping men stay "healthy and fit" and women maintain "a trim figure." This was a common marketing strategy before health dangers were widely acknowledged. The "20,679 physicians" claim and "toasting" process emphasized safety, a typical tactic when smoking's risks were emerging. The phrase "It's toasted" became Lucky Strike's signature slogan. Modern readers should recognize this as predatory advertising using celebrity endorsement and pseudo-scientific health claims to sell an addictive, carcinogenic product—particularly targeting women's body image concerns. Such ads are now illegal. The page reveals how brazenly tobacco companies once marketed cigarettes as healthful.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“No excess weight, my answer is —[ just smoke a Lucky” Arewrge Yerahunc George Gershwin Noted Composer “When people ask me how I keep in physical trim—with no excess weight, my answer is, ‘I just smoke a Lucky whenever I crave over rich pastries which fatten.’ There’s nothing to equal that wonderful flavor, so appetizing yet never interfering with one’s normal ap- petite for healthful foods.” GerorcE GERSHWIN HE modern common sense way—reach for a Lucky instead of a fattening sweet. Everyone is doing it— men keep healthy and fit, women retain a trim figure. Lucky Strike, the finest tobaccos, skilfully blended, then toasted to develop a flavor which is a delightful alternative for that craving for fattening sweets. Toasting frees Lucky Strike from impurities. 20,679 physicians recognize this when they say Luckies are less irritating than other cigarettes. That’s why folks say: “It’s good to smoke Luckies.” Authorities attribute the enor- * mous increase in Cigarette smoking to the improvement in the process of Cigarette manufacture by the application of heat. It is true that during 1928, Lucky Strike Cigarettes showed a greater increase : ; than all other Cigarettes combined. This George Gershwin 4 i surely confirms the public’s confidence in composer of the " the superiority of Lucky Strike. famous “Rhapsod: in Blue” y Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet. © 1929, The American Tobacco Co., Manufacturers comicbooks.com