Marlboro Friday refers to April 2, 1993, when Philip Morris announced a 20% price cut to their

Marlboro Marlboro (, ) is an American brand of cigarettes owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA (a branch of Altria) within the United States and by Philip Morris International (PMI, now separate from Altria) in most global territories outside the ...

cigarettes to fight back against generic competitors, which were increasingly eating into their market share. As a result, Philip Morris's stock fell 26%, and the share value of other branded consumer product companies, including

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...

and

RJR Nabisco R. J. Reynolds Nabisco, Inc., doing business as RJR Nabisco, was an American conglomerate, selling tobacco and food products, headquartered in the Calyon Building in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. R. J. Reynolds Nabisco stopped ...

, fell as well. The broad index fell 1.98% that day. ''Fortune'' magazine deemed Marlboro Friday "the day the Marlboro Man fell off his horse." Philip Morris investors interpreted the price slash as an admission of defeat from the Marlboro brand, evidence that Philip Morris could no longer justify its higher price tag and now had to compete with

generic brand Generic brands of consumer products (often supermarket goods) are distinguished by the absence of a brand name, instead identified solely by product characteristics and identified by plain, usually black-and-white packaging. Generally they imitat ...

s. At the time, this event was regarded as signifying "the death of a

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

" and the advent of a "value-minded" consumer generation who pay more attention to the real value of products and not the brand names. This view soon proved to be incorrect, with the rest of the decade's economy as well as the 2000s to present being dominated by brands and driven by high-budget marketing campaigns.

References

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External links

Marlboro Friday at Investopedia.com
Tobacco advertising Stock market 1993 in the United States Brand management