Life — February 22, 1929 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Lucky Strike Cigarette Advertisement This is a **cigarette advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. It features actress Billie Burke endorsing Lucky Strike cigarettes (1928). The ad uses Burke's celebrity status to promote the product's "toasted" process, claiming it satisfies sweet cravings while maintaining a slim figure—a sales pitch combining vanity and appetite suppression. Burke testifies that Lucky Strikes help her "stay slender" instead of eating sweets. The accompanying note boasts that Lucky Strike showed greater sales increases than competing cigarettes in 1928, attributed to manufacturing improvements. The slogan "It's toasted—No Throat Irritation—No Cough" was a major marketing claim of the era. By modern standards, this advertisement is striking for openly promoting cigarettes for weight management and featuring celebrity health endorsements now recognized as deeply problematic.