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When they were introduced, in the 1920s, Marlboro cigarettes were advertised as a smoke for women that, though unfiltered, were “Mild as May”.

Targeted to “decent, respectable” ladies, a 1927 ad read, “Women quickly develop discerning taste. That is why Marlboros now ride in so many limousines, attend so many bridge parties, and repose in so many handbags.”

This positioning helped Marlboro capture a whopping one-quarter of one percent market share.

In the 1950’s, Reader’s Digest published a series of articles that linked smoking with lung cancer. Cigarette sales plummeted and Marlboro was treading water.

Competitors began aggressively marketing the filter-tip to “health-conscious” smokers.

Philip Morris (MO) didn’t have a filtered product at the time. So it re-launched the underperforming Marlboro—with red filters, so as to make lipstick smudges less noticeable. Now, Philip Morris was stuck with a cigarette for women which women weren’t smoking all that many of anyway, with a “feminine” tip that turned men off.

Enter Chicago advertising legend Leo Burnett, who created the Jolly Green Giant, the Pillsbury Doughboy and Tony the Tiger. Burnett suggested a top-to-bottom overhaul of the brand—including a switch from the red filter to one of imitation cork. In short order, Marlboro went from this:

To this:

In Burnett’s words, the Marlboro Man “would turn the rookie smokers on to Marlboro...the right image to capture the youth market’s fancy...a perfect symbol of independence and individualistic rebellion.” The campaign went national in1955. Ad copy boasted that the “man sized taste of honest tobacco comes full through. Smooth-drawing filter feels right in your mouth. Works fine but doesn’t get in the way. Modern flip top box keeps every cigarette firm until you smoke it.”

The National Museum of American History explains that the original Marlboro Men weren’t limited to cowboys. There were also lifeguards, sailors, drill sergeants, construction workers, gamblers and “other types suggestive of a masculine spirit and rugged independence.”

A far cry from touting the fact that Marlboros “ride in so many limousines, attend so many bridge parties, and repose in so many handbags.”

It also didn’t hurt that Mr. Burnett was himself intimately familiar with the product:

Sales reached $5 billion, a 3,241% jump over 1954 and far beyond pre-cowboy numbers, when Marlboro’s market share never passed 1%. By the 1980’s, Marlboros were being sold in over 180 countries. Today, Marlboro is the top tobacco brand globally, with 40.5% of the market, followed by Newport’s 8.9% and Camel’s 6.6%. 3 out of 10 cigarettes sold in America are Marlboros—more than five times as many as number-two brand Newport.

Currently, Marlboro is the most profitable of non–durable consumer good in the world, thanks in no small part to the Marlboro Man. An article in Advertising Age points out that “even those ad professionals who abhor the tobacco industry will, when pressed, agree that the Marlboro Man has had unprecedented success as a global marketing tool.”

In the book “The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived,” by Allan Lazar, Dan Karlan and Jeremy Salter, the most influential fictional character to date is the Marlboro Man—ahead of Santa Claus (No. 4), King Arthur (No. 3) and Big Brother (from George Orwell’s “1984”, at No. 2).

On June 5, 1996, Marlboro became the first tobacco product to be named to the Marketing Hall of Fame, joining brands like Coca-Cola (KO), Walt Disney (DIS), Federal Express (FDX), and Nike (NKE).

Yep, people sure do loves they Marlboro Man. Hell, they even love the logo: