In the spring of 1952, Lorilard Tobacco Company began producing 70-mm-long cigarettes under the brand name Kent Cigarettes. Their name was obtained in honor of the managing company high-staff employee, Herbert Kent. These cigarettes were equipped with asbestos filters and had a mild taste. During their heyday, they were in demand so much that in some countries they were even used as currency – it was possible to purchase certain goods and even services against the bundles and blocks of Kent.

A few years later, it was decided to replace existing cigarette filters with asbestos-free versions – Micronite, which allowed the company to rise above its competitors in the opinion of consumers. The marketing activity of the company seemed to be very unusual, but the sales of cigarettes of this brand increased from year to year, and the main market in the 1960-70s of the last century was the United States of America.

In the late 1970s, the brand was acquired by the British American Tobacco Group and its implementation outside the American continent had begun. However, the cigarette concept was a counterargument against Kent. After just one decade, light mild cigarettes became too heavy, as competitors released a new category of cigarettes to be marketed, namely the so-called lights. They had an even milder taste and gradually gained popularity in the society of that time.

In addition, the appearance of the packaging of Kent was very contradictory – an impressive white-colored fortress did not cause any associations with the ease of cigarettes inside this pack. All this had a negative impact on the sales of tobacco products of this brand as well as on the image of the company itself. Therefore, in the mid-1990s, the British American Tobacco had to choose – doom the brand to certain disappearance from the market or give it a new life.

At the end, it was decided to reanimate it through some modifications of the concept. The first modification was proposed by the Russian representative office of the company and assumed to launch the creation of the so-called “lightness scale”.

Because the brand Kent originally meant only light cigarettes, but the degree of ease, as everyone knows, is determined individually by each person. So, the manufacturers decided to produce three types of cigarettes, which were differing with the level of tar content in them, and label them with the numbers “1”, “4” and ” 8″.

The change also affected the appearance of the packaging of cigarettes – the right angles became rounded, the image of the fortress decreased significantly in size, the name of the brand on the pack was then printed in English and Russian, and the colors of the packs themselves differed, depending on the degree of lightness of the cigarettes.

That approach was an argument to win market and distribute top-value cigarettes, which can be purchased in our online store at low prices.