Cigar smoking has long been seen as a male-dominated hobby, but the past few decades have seen a surge in female interest in cigars. This has led to a wave of innovation and creativity in the tobacco industry, with new brands and marketing strategies being developed to appeal to women smokers. In the 1940s and 1950s, cigar sales remained relatively stable and most cigars were machine-manufactured. However, this changed in the 1990s and 2000s when cigar consumption in the United States increased dramatically.
This was partly due to new marketing strategies that were developed to target women smokers. For example, in 1999, two companies launched cigar vending machines and there was a planned line of cigars called Cleopatra that were designed to appeal to female cigar lovers. In 1996, General Cigar stopped shipping Macanudo cigars for six weeks, which was the best-selling premium cigar in the United States at the time. This was part of their strategy to expand their operations and attract newcomers to the tobacco industry.
In the 1970s, most imported cigars consumed in the United States were rolled in the Canary Islands, Jamaica and Mexico. At this time, the US was still manufacturing a large number of cigars. However, by the 1980s, Cigar Aficanal reported that women accounted for just one-tenth of one percent of the total US cigar market. Nowadays, there are no cigars on the market that are specifically designed to appeal to women smokers.
However, El Septimo is showing that women should have an immense influence on both the smoking community and on the creation of cigarettes. Finally, cigarette consumption did not change among NH White and NH Black respondents aged 26 to 34, neither among white women in NH nor among black men in NH. However, cigar consumption increased among black women in NH.
