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Wings is a brand of the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation. It was first introduced to American smokers in 1929 as a popular ten cent economy brand. Later, the original dark brown label gave way to white in 1940 due to wartime ink restrictions. Around that time, the cigarette was increased to king sized.

As a subsidiary of giant British American Tobacco, Wings, along with some of B&W’s other cigarette brands were sold in Europe.

Cigarette camp edit

Camp Wings was one of the American Army camps established near Le Havre, France, in World War II. As explained in “Introducton The Cigarette Camps” at the website, The Cigarette Camps The U.S. Army Camps in the Le Havre Area 1 2

The staging area camps were named after various brands of American cigarettes the assembly area camps were named after American cities. The names of cigarettes and cities were chosen for two reasons First, and primarily, for security. Referring to the camps without an indication of their geographical location went a long way to ensuring that the enemy would not know precisely where they were. Anybody eavesdropping or listening to radio traffic would think that cigarettes were being discussed or the camp was stateside, especially regarding the city camps. Secondly, there was a subtle psychological reason, the premise being that troops heading into battle wouldn’t mind staying at a place where cigarettes must be plentiful and troops about to depart for combat would be somehow comforted in places with familiar names of cities back home (Camp Atlanta, Camp Baltimore, Camp New York, and Camp Pittsburgh, among others). By war’s end, however, all of the cigarette and city camps were devoted to departees. Many processed liberated American POWs (Prisoners of War) and some even held German POWs for a while.

References edit

Bbc news – cigarette packet branding to face consultation

Ecigs brand

Packets will be a dark olive green, after the public was asked what the least attractive colour was.

Research published in Australia has suggested that cigarette packets have increasingly become an important marketing tool as restrictions on advertising and sponsorship have been brought in.

Mr Lansley told the Times he was open minded, but that he believed attractive packaging helped recruit smokers from a young age.

More than 300,000 children aged under 16 in England try smoking each year, according to government figures.

The consultation will also examine if plain packaging could lead to a rise in cigarette packets being sold on the black market.

Mr Lansley said the tobacco companies used certain colours to trigger memories and their brands constituted a type of advertising.

“We don’t want to work in partnership with the tobacco companies because we are trying to arrive at a point where they have no business in this country,” he added.

Counterfeiting ‘risk’

The consultation document is expected to suggest that branded tobacco packets create “smoker identity”, with certain brands seen as “cool” and “popular”, the paper reported.

It is also expected to say that tobacco firms use colours and logos to boost their profits.

The Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association said it “welcomed” the consultation.

But Jane Chisholm Caunt, secretary general of the TMA, said “There is no reliable evidence plain packaging will reduce rates of youth smoking.

“Smoking initiation in children is actually linked to a complex range of socio economic factors including home life, peer pressure and truancy and exclusion from school.”

And she warned plain packaging would only serve to make counterfeiting cigarettes easier.

Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest which runs the “Hands Off Our Packs” campaign, added “The consultation on plain packaging threatens to be a farce.

“Andrew Lansley says he is open minded yet he clearly supports plain packaging even before the consultation has begun.”

Smoking rates have fallen significantly since the link with cancer was established beyond doubt in the 1950s.

But it recent years the decline has slowed with the number of adult smokers hovering above the 21% for some time.

Ministers have promised to reduce this to 18.5% by 2015.