Wednesday, November 21, 2007

A bigger pack

Smoke cigarettes “The Pack”
M. Bulanov, 1927

A tobacco advertizing poster from the NEP era. The slogan says:

Smoke cigarettes “The Pack”
[Available] Nowhere but in Mosselprom

The poster advertizes cigarettes named as simple as “The Pack”. The poster shows “The Pack” stationed on a gun carriage, forming a cannon with multiple barrels – the cigarettes themselves. This goes back to the popular vanity show of the times – a human cannon ball. The cannon has just fired a shot, and there is a smiling man riding a flying “papirosa” (a cigarette without a filter). He is dressed in a typical store clerk clothes – “kosovorotka” or Russian shirt, “kartuz” or peaked cap and jack boots. The store clerks responsible for the wholesale purchase were the target audience, as there was a Mosselprom building pictured in the background there. The poster was bright and energetic enough to attract attention to the cigarettes with such an ordinary name – “The Pack”.

Check the vintage cigarettes here: