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Thursday. February 5. 1976
Report from Philip Morris
Twelve ìéar Effort
Ends With
Unprecedented
Fkivor In
LowTàr Smoke.
Nevy'Enriched Flavor discovery for 9 mg, tar M ERIT
achieves taste of cigarettes having 60% more tar.
The greatest challenge to cigarette-makers in recent years
has been how to make a low tar cigarette that wasn’t “low”
in taste.
Now after twelve long, hard years, researchers at Philip
Morris have developed the way to do it.
The cigarette is called MERIT.
It delivers only 9 mg. of tar. One of the lowest tar levels in
smoking today. Lower than five current low tar leaders.
And the taste? If you enjoy smoking—you’ll be interested.
Smoke Cracked: ‘Enriched Flavor’Achieved
I
Others have tried to design a special filter or filtering
system that would somehow filter out tar but not taste.
We tried too. O ur results were almost predictable: the
more tar we took out, the less taste we got.
So for flavor, we concentrated on the business end
of smoking. The tobacco end.
By using an instrument called an analytical
fractometer, we began “cracking” cigarette smoke
down into its various ingredients.
Some 2000-plus ingredients
were isolated, one by one.
What we discovered was
startling. There are ingredients
in tobacco —basic flavor units —
that deliver taste way out of
proportion to tar.
By selecting only those units
that proved themselves to be
high flavor yet low tar
producers, what we call
‘Enriched Flavor’ was
developed and then added
to the tobacco to make
MERIT.
A flavor concentrate for
tobacco. To give it extra
• PMUp M o rn . lac. 197«
flavor. Natural flavor. Flavor that couldn’t burn out, couldn’t
drop out, couldn’t do anything but come through for you.
We packed Enriched Flavor’ into MERIT.
And began the series of taste tests that were to prove we
had real news for smokers.
Taste Tested By People Like \bu
9 mg. tar MERIT was taste-tested against five current
leading low tar brands ranging from 11 mg. to 15 mg. tar.
Thousands of smokers were involved, smokers of filter
cigarettes like yourself—all tested at home?
The results were conclusive:
Even if the cigarette tested had up to 60% more tar than
MERIT, a significant majority of all smokers tested reported
new Enriched Flavor MERIT delivered more taste.
Repeat: delivered more taste.
In similar tests against 11 mg. to 15
mg. menthol brands, 9 mg. tar MERIT
MENTHOL performed strongly too,
delivering as much —or more —taste
than the higher tar brands tested.
You’ve been smoking “low
tar, good taste” claims long
enough. Now you’ve got the
cigarette.
MERIT. Incredible
smoking pleasure
at only 9 mg.
tar.
From Philip
Morris.
‘ American Institute o f Consumer Opinion
Study available free on request
9 m g.''tar/ 0.7 mg. nicotine av. per cigarette by FTC Method.
MERITand MERIT MENTHOL
W arning: The Surgeon General Has D eterm ined
That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health
!