Joltin’ Joe Enjoys Smoking Camel, The Cigarette With 28% Less Nicotine

Joe DiMaggio’s swing takes up half the space in this Camel cigarette ad which ran in Time Magazine April 6, 1942. It’s as good a way to promote smoking than just showing DiMaggio smoking.

Capturing reader’s attention is always the hard part of magazine advertising. So the series of photos of DiMaggio’s swing probably gets you to examine the page. Generally people buy news magazines to read them, not look at the ads.

Companies have always believed that to attract customers, you should have a celebrity push your product.And New York Yankees slugger Joe DiMaggio was not adverse to taking the extra income for promoting Camel cigarettes.

When the ad would appear on a back cover rather than the interior of magazines in 1942, Camel spent the extra dough to have it produced in color.

The copywriter’s imagined words for DiMaggio ring true, ‘”I’ve smoked Camels for eight years. They have the mildness that counts with me.  I find Camel’s easy on the throat.”

DiMaggio’s affinity for cigarettes was real. Many photos of DiMaggio off the field show him holding a cigarette.

Having 28% less nicotine than other cigarettes really doesn’t matter when it comes to the harm that smoking did to DiMaggio.

Joe DiMaggio died on March 8, 1999 at age 84 not surprisingly from lung cancer.