Disclaimer: I don’t smoke, so I can’t say that I can definitively speak about the smoker experience.
The WSJ recently ran a story about a new type of cigarette that Marlboro plans to launch in the United States, called “Marlboro Intense”. It’s a cigarette that is shorter than most regular 8 puff plus cigs.
A topic I often think about (because I am a victim of not having enough time for the random web explorations I enjoy) is products and services that decrease, or at least transmit cues about the amount of time they take up. Most of the time, the products that you want to consume less time are the ones that are associated with necessary evils (chores like washing the dishes, mopping a floor, etc). But products that are meant for pleasure you may want to take up more time, right?
Except, maybe you just don’t. Maybe people want short, intense periods of pleasure, as indicated by the typical consumer of a Marlboro intense cigarette. The design idea behind Intense is to “appeal to customers who, due to indoor smoking bans, want to dash outside for a quick nicotine hit but don’t always finish a full size cigarette”. So as I imagine, it’s the same nicotine content (or more?) in a smaller package that is consumed faster.
I wouldn’t have imagined a strategy like this would… work. Then again, I have never observed or done research on smokers.
On a related note– in Germany, the smoking ban has made it much harder to flirt, whereas it seems to have made it easier in Ireland: Smirting (smoking+flirting).
More on intense experiences later. Now, I gotta get some intense sleep for tomorrow’s 8am class.
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