Life, 1917-07-19 · page 3 of 40
Life — July 19, 1917 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **cigarette advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. Lucky Strike marketed their "toasted" cigarettes by drawing a parallel to cooking: just as people prefer cooked food to raw, they should prefer toasted tobacco to untoasted. The ad claims toasting develops superior "Burley flavor" and appeals to consumer preference for processed foods. It uses straightforward marketing logic rather than humor or caricature. **Modern context**: This predates widespread knowledge of smoking's health dangers. The "toasting" claim was a genuine selling point in early-twentieth-century advertising. The ad's comparison of tobacco processing to food preparation was typical marketing strategy of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| Here, sir, #/ is the new ry ite UCKY Strike, it’s called. And just LE exactly as you prefer 95% of food | cooked, you will now prefer your tobacco toasted. Cooking (toasting, broiling, roasting) makes things delicious, appetizing, and savory, because it develops flavor. You don’t eat raw steak or drink raw coffee. You like toast better than bread—espe- AY cially fresh buttered toast. We toast the Burley tobacco for Lucky Strike cigarettes to develop the utmost S Burley flavor and seal it in, so it’s always there for you. That’s what toasting does. You’re in for a new flavor when you join the Lucky Strike Smoke circle— with the real Burley cigarette. It’s Toasted Copyright by The American Tobacco Company, Inc., 1917. Y xun | comicbooks.com