He is rugged, independent and rides horseback far across the American West. He inhabits a world of vivid sunsets and canyons, chain-smoking along the way as he lights up one of the 20th century’s most famous marketing campaigns.
David Millar, the real-life Marlboro Man, died of emphysema years ago and the advertising campaign was stubbed out in 1999 when Philip Morris, the brand’s owner, was forced to accept strict new marketing rules. But Marlboro Man rides on, both in popular imagination and as a symbol of Big Tobacco’s financial clout.
These days, Americans are smoking fewer cigarettes. With adult smoking rates in the United States hovering around 15 per cent, down from 25 per cent in 1995, cowboys are almost as likely to be vaping