Bonsack Machine

Available for over a year

One historian of the cigarette industry reckons it invented much of modern marketing. Why did such huge sums go into advertising early brands such as Camels and Lucky Strikes? Before an inventor called James Bonsack came along, cigarettes were far less popular than cigars, pipes or chewing tobacco. Bonsack’s machine made it possible to make huge amounts of cigarettes more cheaply – creating the need to persuade people to buy them. But, as Tim Harford explains, many modern regulators think we should be worried about the power of cigarette branding. Producer: Ben Crighton Editor: Richard Vadon