Category: Pop culture

Advertising, Marketing, Pop culture, Tobacco, Tobacco documents

R.J. Reynolds’ Doral Trucker Program: Get a Free Smokin’ Joe Condom

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TruckerSmoking

Trucker drivers have a far higher smoking rate than the general population, making them a prized target for tobacco companies.

In 1996, R.J. Reynolds noted that the smoking incidence among professional truck drivers was a whopping 76%, and sought to capitalize on that fact. The document noted below this post, “Doral Trucker Program Rolling Rolling Rolling,” lists ideas for promoting Doral cigarettes to truckers. Ideas included tying product and service giveaways into frequent fueler programs, providing a truckers with a roadside assistance program and providing purchase incentives like “Buy 1 Carton, Get a Free Truck Wash,” “Buy 2 Packs, Get a Free Hula Girl Air Freshener,” “Buy 2 packs and Get a Free Smokin’ Joe Condom.” Other promotional ideas included arranging for a date with an actress from Hee Haw (a 1960s-1970s TV variety show set a fictional rural southern county called Kornfield Kounty and featuring country music) or giving away a “rubber trucker companion doll.”

Source: Doral Trucker Program Rolling Rolling Rolling, 1996, R.J. Reynolds document collection, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library

Consumer advocacy, Economics, Ethics, Pop culture

Look for This: Rounding on Restaurant Checks

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penny2Next time you dine out, take a close look at your check. Restaurants are starting to round the pennies on customers’ bills up or down, usually to the nearest nickel, to avoid having to deal with pennies. Chipoltle restaurants were caught doing this without notifying customers, and when customers noticed the practice and expressed irritation, the chain added a line on the bill titled “rounding” to openly account for the missing change. They also started rounding down in diners’ favor.

Apparently it’s worth it.

Restaurateurs say rounding speeds up finalizing bills and eliminates the hassle and expense of dealing with pennies, which are quickly becoming passe’. After all, pennies are now so worthless that people drop them all the time and don’t even bother to pick them up.  Some businesses cope with the penny problem with “take a penny, leave a penny” jars, but many are just throwing up their hands and declaring they are done dealing with pennies altogether.

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Advertising, politics, Pop culture

Post-Election, Angry Citizens Seek Secession

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In the week since the general election, multiple online petitions have appeared asking the Obama Administration to allow certain states to secede from the union.  The petitions seek independence for Utah, South Dakota, West Virginia, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Nevada and New York. There are two separate petitions for Ohio. Utah’s petition, created on November 11, states,

“We the people of the great state of Utah, do see that in today’s world the Federal Government has not led our citizens justly and with honor. We therefore as free men and women of our great state do believe that it is time to take matter [sic] upon ourselves to ensure our continued freedom, and to enact our own laws and here buy govern ourselves without the federal government’s involvement in our internal matters from this day forward.”

In response, someone created a petition asking the Obama Administration to strip the citizenship from, and peacefully deport each American citizen who signed a petition for any state to secede from the USA.

Media, politics, Pop culture

Need Some Entertainment?

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A new Twitter hashtag has appeared: #RepublicanBooks. Suggested titles include, “Fifty Shades of Nay,” “The Agony Without the Ecstasy,” “Dog on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Animal Factory Farm,” “Crime and No Punishment,” and children’s books like “One Fish, Two Fish, Three for Me, None for You Fish.” Another new hashtag is trending, “DemocratBooks.” Some suggested titles there include, “Little Foreclosed Home on the Prarie,” “Community Organizing for Idiots,” “Sophie’s Mandate,” and “Who Moved my Government Cheese?”