Packaging Characteristics of Top-Selling Cigars in the United States, 2018

Abstract

Introduction

Tobacco product packaging is an influential industry marketing tool, but research on cigar packaging characteristics is limited. This study leveraged a pack archive of the top-selling, mass-market cigar products in the US and their corresponding sales data to assess the prevalence of common pack features in the marketplace.

Methods

The 50 cigar products with the highest national unit sales in 2018 were identified using Nielsen’s Scantrack data. A content analysis captured common packaging features within four domains: physical, textual, graphical, and promotional elements. Descriptive statistics, weighted by each pack’s 2018 unit sales, documented the market share of pack characteristics overall and by brand.

Results

Products in the sample constituted 62% of all convenience store cigar sales in 2018. Black & Mild, the most popular brand, did not display warning labels on its single stick, cellophane-wrapped products, which constituted nearly all of its sales (96.3%). Resealable foil pouches were the most common packaging style across other brands, and were most often sold in predominantly red, green, or silver packaging. Common flavor categories included concept (eg, “Jazz”, 32.4%), fruit (15.7%), and sweet (14.5%). Prepricing (eg, “2 for 99 cents”) was a popular promotional strategy, appearing on 74% of all packs sold.

Conclusions

Cigar packaging features such as small pack sizes, innovative materials, flavor names, bright colors, and cost-saving promotions are prevalent among the top-selling products. Stronger packaging-focused policies at the federal and local levels may help reduce appeal and potentially curb cigar use.

Implications

Sales of mass-market cigars in the US have remained strong over the past decade, propelled by lax product regulations. This study demonstrated that cigar packaging features that may enhance consumer appeal, such as small pack sizes, flavor names, sensory descriptors, bright colors, and cost-saving promotions, are prevalent among the top-selling products. Stronger packaging-focused policies at the federal and local levels may help curb cigar use, reduce youth appeal, and potentially minimize existing disparities in cigar use.

Introduction

Cigars—which include large cigars, cigarillos (ie, mid-sized cigars), and little filtered cigars—are popular tobacco products in the United States (US), particularly among young people.^1,2 In 2020, cigars were the second most commonly used tobacco product after electronic cigarettes among high school students. Black youth reported cigar use at twice the national rate, likely the result of targeted marketing in neighborhoods with a high proportion of Black residents.^3,4 While many cigar users smoke their products for tobacco consumption, others modify cigars to use them as blunts (ie, hollowed-out cigars filled with cannabis),⁵ which is especially common among cigarillo users.⁶ Prior research suggests that certain cigarillo brands are associated with product modification: Black & Mild is perceived as a brand primarily used to smoke tobacco, whereas other leading brands, such as Swisher Sweets, Game, and Dutch Masters, are reportedly used almost exclusively as blunts.⁷

In contrast to declining cigarette sales, cigar sales have increased over the past decade, driven by the popularity of inexpensive, machine-made cigarillos widely available in convenience stores.^8,9 Research indicates that product features banned for cigarettes but not cigars (eg, flavors, small unit counts) have propelled cigar sales.^8,9 Product packaging is another feature known to appeal to tobacco users,¹⁰ but research specific to cigar packaging characteristics is limited. Most existing studies assessed the impact of individual pack characteristics—such as color,^11,12 flavor names,^12,13 unit count,^14,15 price promotions,¹¹ and warning labels^12,16—on consumer perceptions and/or behaviors using experimental designs or population survey data. These studies, as well as qualitative research,^7,17 generally found that packaging features such as explicit flavor names, price promotions, colorful designs, and sensory descriptors (eg, “natural”) were rated more favorably. Blunt users particularly valued packaging features such as flavors, which can enhance the taste of cannabis; low price points; and resealable pouches, which can be used to store unused cannabis and maintain its freshness.⁷ With the exception of a minimum pack size policy for little filtered cigars, no federal regulations exist that restrict elements of cigar packaging.

While consumer perception studies document the appeal of certain packaging characteristics, the prevalence of these packaging features in the US cigar marketplace is currently unknown. Retail scanner sales data (eg, Nielsen) can provide some details about common pack sizes, flavors, and other product characteristics, but they contain very limited information about the visual elements of packaging. Given the importance of pack design as a tobacco industry marketing tool,¹⁰ this study leverages a packaging archive of the top-selling cigar products in the US and their corresponding sales data to conduct a weighted content analysis of packaging characteristics.

Methods

The 50 cigar products (ie, unique UPCs) with the highest national unit sales in 2018 were identified using Nielsen’s Scantrack data (convenience store channel), which is frequently used to characterize the US cigar marketplace.^8,9,18 Forty-six of these products were successfully purchased from retailers in the New York City metropolitan area in 2019 (Figure 1); data collectors verified that the UPCs and other product attributes matched the information in Nielsen’s database. In an initial round of “open coding,” 3 team members noted all observed packaging features. Then, through group consensus and feedback from the broader study team, a final coding instrument was developed to capture common features within four key domains. Physical packaging elements included: unit count; material (eg, foil, cellophane); and resealability. Textual elements included: warning labels; descriptive text (eg, “natural”); and flavor descriptor category (eg, fruit, sweet, concept – such as “Jazz”), not including terms in the brand name (eg, Swisher Sweets). Graphical elements included: dominant color (ie, nonblack/white color at least 50% of the pack area) and imagery pictured (eg, animals). Promotional elements included: price promotions (eg, prepricing or other promotional language, such as “Save on 2 cigars”); and social media and website information. Inter-rater reliability was high (kappa >0.9) across all measures. Descriptive statistics, weighted by each pack’s 2018 unit sales, documented the market share of popular pack characteristics overall and by brand. Weighting the data by unit sales generated estimates that reflect the prevalence of each packaging feature in the cigar marketplace.

Figure 1.

Sample of the top-selling cigar products in US convenience stores, 2018 (front and back).

Results

National unit sales for the 46 products in the sample totaled 1.3 billion, constituting 62% of all convenience store cigar sales in 2018 (Table 1). The 4 products that could not be located—neither in retailers nor online—included 3 Black & Mild products (all unflavored, single sticks) and Game “natural” flavor (2 count). All purchased products were cigarillos; there were no large cigars or little filtered cigars among the top 50 products. Black & Mild was the most popular brand (42.2% of unit sales), followed by Swisher Sweets (32.7%), Game (12.0%), and White Owl (7.7%). The average price of all purchased products was $1.25 (range: $0.79 to $6.35).

Table 1.

Prevalence of Packaging Features Among Top-Selling Cigar Products in the US,^a 2018

	Overall (%)	Black & Mild (%)	Swisher Sweets (%)	Game (%)	White Owl (%)	Dutch Masters (%)	Backwoods (%)	Optimo (%)
Packs in sample	n = 46	n = 15	n = 14	n = 8	n = 5	n = 2	n = 1	n = 1
Total unit sales (2018)	n = 1 269 088 511	n = 546 983 277	n = 413 336 317	n = 155 437 433	n = 99 058 110	n = 40 516 655	n = 16 046 306	n = 13 756 719
Physical Elements
Unit countb
2-pack	52.9	0.0	93.5	100.0	100.0	51.7	0.0	100.0
Single stick	40.7	96.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
5-pack	3.8	3.7	3.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	100.0	0.0
3-pack	2.7	0.0	3.5	0.0	0.0	48.3	0.0	0.0
Material
Foil pouch	56.8	0.0	97.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Clear cellophane wrapper	40.7	96.3	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Cardboard box	2.5	3.7	3.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Resealable	55.6	0.0	97.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	0.0	100.0
Textual Elements
Flavor name category
No flavor name	33.4	37.6	53.4	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Conceptc	32.4	39.9	22.7	36.3	15.9	48.3	0.0	100.0
Fruit	15.3	0.0	20.2	32.9	40.2	51.7	0.0	0.0
Sweetd	14.5	11.8	3.7	30.8	44.0	0.0	100.0	0.0
Alcohol	4.5	10.7	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Warning label present	59.3	3.7	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Warning label color
White with black text	78.5	100.0	97.6	0.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Black with white text	23.3	0.0	2.4	100.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	100.0
“Natural” language	19.0	3.7	0.0	100.0	0.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
“Slow burn”	50.3	17.8	94.6	0.0	100.0	100.0	0.0	100.0
Graphical Elements
Dominant color(s)e
None (black, white, transparent)	43.5	96.3	0.0	15.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	100.0
Red	23.0	0.0	58.8	15.6	24.7	0.0	0.0	0.0
Green	8.6	0.0	6.6	24.1	45.9	0.0	0.0	0.0
Silver	7.4	0.0	19.0	0.0	15.9	0.0	0.0	0.0
Blue	6.4	0.0	7.7	19.7	0.0	48.3	0.0	0.0
Purple	4.0	0.0	5.7	17.8	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Pink	3.3	0.0	5.2	0.0	0.0	51.7	0.0	0.0
Brown	2.8	3.7	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	100.0	0.0
Orange	2.0	0.0	0.0	7.6	13.6	0.0	0.0	0.0
Gold	0.8	0.0	2.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Imagery pictured
Cigar(s)f	61.3	91.6	5.4	100.0	100.0	0.0	100.0	0.0
Animal(s)	13.3	3.7	0.0	7.6	100.0	100.0	0.0	0.0
Promotional Elements
Prepricingg	74.0	69.8	68.0	100.0	100.0	51.7	0.0	100.0
Promotional dealh	8.4	0.0	23.1	7.6	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Social media account information	30.9	0.0	94.6	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Website displayed	92.5	89.5	100.0	100.0	73.4	100.0	100.0	0.0

Analyses weighted by unit (pack) sales; the 46 products in the sample constituted 62% of the total US convenience store market in 2018;

Unit count: number of individual cigars in pack;

Concept flavors included flavor names such as Green, Jazz, and Tropical Fusion;

The brand name Swisher Sweets was not coded as a “sweet” flavor descriptor;

Dominant colors were defined as single colors (not white or black) that took up at least 50% of the pack area;

Cigar imagery included both depictions of cigars and products with transparent wrappers where the interior cigar(s) were visible;

Prepricing included language such as “2 cigars for only 99 cents”;

Promotional deals included language such as “Save on 2 cigars”

Physical Elements

Two-packs and single sticks were the most popular unit counts (52.9% and 40.7% of sales, respectively) among the top-selling products, with major brand-level differences. Black & Mild was the only brand to sell singles, which constituted nearly all of its sales (96.3%). Two-packs dominated most other brands’ sales, except for Backwoods, whose sales were exclusively for 5-packs. Similarly, resealable foil pouches were the most common packaging material across all brands (range: 97–100%), except for Black & Mild, which primarily sold its products in transparent cellophane wrappers (96.3%).

Textual Elements

Among the top-selling products, 33.4% of all units sold did not display a flavor descriptor. Concept flavors were the most common flavor category across most brands, including Black & Mild (39.9%), Swisher Sweets (22.7%), Game (36.3%), and Optimo (100%). Popular concept flavors included Jazz, Casino, and Blue. Fruit was the most popular flavor category for sales of White Owl (40.2%) and Dutch Masters (51.7%), and all Backwoods sales in this sample were for its “Sweet Aromatic” flavor.

Black & Mild did not display warning labels on any single stick products, its most popular unit size (96.3%). All other brands featured warning labels taking up approximately a third of the pack area. Notably, all products with a warning label displayed this information on both the front and the back of the product. Brands often emphasized the “slow burn” of their products: this language appeared on 50.3% of all packs sold. Less common was the phrase “natural” (19.0%), although Game, Dutch Masters, Backwoods, and Optimo always highlighted their cigars’ “natural leaf” wraps.

Graphical Elements

Nearly all of Black & Mild’s sales consisted of packaging without a dominant color (96.3%), given the transparent single stick wrapper; however, colorful packaging was common among the other brands in the sample. Red and silver were the most popular colors for Swisher Sweets (57.8% and 19.5%, respectively), and green was the best-selling color for Game (24.1%) and White Owl (45.9%). Sales of Dutch Masters were evenly split between pink (51.7%) and blue (48.3%) packaging. Animal imagery was featured on 13.3% of packs, driven mainly by the cartoon owl on White Owl’s packaging.

Promotional Elements

Prepricing was a popular promotional strategy, appearing on 74.0% of all packs sold. Prepricing language was most often displayed in large, yellow boxes at the top of foil pouches (eg, “2 cigars for 99 cents”). Black & Mild single sticks also displayed prices, which ranged from 79 to 99 cents. Social media account information was present on 30.9% of packs, but this was exclusively due to Swisher Sweets, which listed its Twitter and Instagram accounts on most packs (94.6%). Almost all brands’ packs displayed website information (92.5%).

Discussion

Black & Mild, the best-selling brand in the sample, deviated from other brands in key ways, most notably in its sale of single stick cigars and lack of warning labels on these products. While Black & Mild cigars are often distributed to retailers in large boxes that display warnings, the cigars are usually sold individually to consumers, suggesting consumers may miss the warning exposure. Per an agreement between major cigar manufacturers and the Federal Trade Commission, all Black & Mild products should carry warnings; the lack of warning labels on single sticks warrants attention, particularly because these products are disproportionately used by younger people.^15,19

Black & Mild also diverges from other cigarillo brands in terms of consumers’ intended use behaviors. Qualitative studies suggest that Black & Mild is predominantly used to smoke tobacco, whereas other cigarillo brands are overwhelmingly used as blunts, particularly among young adults.^7,20 This study demonstrated that brands commonly used as blunts (ie, not Black & Mild) frequently have packaging features known to facilitate or enhance cannabis use, such as explicit flavors (eg, fruit, sweet) and “slow burn” language (since blunts are often used socially, a slower burn extends the blunt-sharing experience).⁷ Moreover, these brands sell nearly all of their leading products in resealable foil pouches, which consumers value for their ability to hold unused cannabis, mask its smell, and maintain its freshness.⁷

Brands such as Swisher Sweets, Game, Optimo, and White Owl also have packaging characteristics that studies suggest may appeal to young people, such as colorful designs and information about brands’ social media accounts. Several brands alluded to the “natural” elements of their products, such as the “natural leaf,” which potentially conveys reduced risk. Across all brands, promotional language highlighting low price points was prevalent.

Limitations are noted. First, the pack sample was drawn using data from Nielsen’s convenience store channel, which does not capture all mass-market cigar sales; however, the vast majority of cigar sales in the US occur in convenience stores.^8,9 Second, the analyses do not reflect all cigar sales in convenience stores, due to the impracticality of purchasing all unique cigar packs on the market. Nevertheless, the 50 sampled products represent nearly two-thirds of all convenience store cigar sales, providing an extensive snapshot of the marketplace. Moreover, there were diminishing returns for each unique pack above number 50, given that they each contributed to <1% of the market share. Third, caution should be used when interpreting data for brands with few packs represented in the top 50 products.

In summary, cigar packaging features such as small pack sizes, innovative materials, flavor names, sensory descriptors, bright colors, and cost-saving promotions are prevalent among the top-selling products. Stronger packaging-focused policies at the federal and local levels may help curb cigarillo use, reduce youth appeal, and potentially minimize existing disparities in cigar use.

Supplementary Material

A Contributorship Form detailing each author’s specific involvement with this content, as well as any supplementary data, are available online at https://academic.oup.com/ntr.

Funding

All authors were supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH, U54CA229973). DPG was also supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Healh Office of the Director (DP5OD023064). OG was also supported by the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey under P30CA07270-5931. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIH, NCI or FDA.

Declaration of Interests

None declared.

Data Availability

Data for this study can be shared upon request and is subject to a data use agreement.