Life, 1917-09-06 · page 37 of 40
Life — September 6, 1917 — page 37: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **Lucky Strike cigarette advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. The page shows a vintage tobacco ad from Life magazine (page 397). The ad demonstrates Lucky Strike's marketing claim that toasting tobacco improved flavor. The text describes in-store demonstrations where salesmen would toast tobacco samples over a flame to convince customers that the toasting process enhanced the product's taste and aroma. The large illustration depicts a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes emerging from a flame, emphasizing this toasting technique as the brand's distinctive feature. The phrase "It's toasted" became Lucky Strike's actual advertising slogan. **For modern readers:** This represents an era when tobacco companies openly advertised cigarettes in mainstream magazines and conducted live product demonstrations in stores—practices now prohibited. The ad makes direct health/quality claims that would be illegal today.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
path, \ We show you what toasting i. does for | tobacco / OU have probably seen some of our men “demonstrating” in the stores how we toast the tobacco for Lucky Strike Cigarettes. They put a handful of Lucky Strike tobacco into a small pan and offer you this to sniff the fragrance. Then they toast the tobacco over a flame and again offer it to you. You notice at once how the flavor is brought out and increased by this toasting. You owe the delicious new Lucky Strike Cigarette to our development of this simple idea. “Aoasted i ae