Altria's 'Safer' Smokes Latest in Line of Flops

Marlboro Ultra Smooth can't beat declining demand in 3-year test
By Sam Gale Rosen,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 23, 2008 2:47 PM CDT
Altria's 'Safer' Smokes Latest in Line of Flops
The new Corporate headquarters sign of Altria in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, April 23, 2008. Altria is expected to release it's quarterly earnings Thursday.    (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Altria is dropping its Marlboro Ultra Smooth cigarettes, the Wall Street Journal reports—the latest in a growing list of failures to sell Americans on so-called "safer" tobacco products. The cigarettes, which used special filters to block carcinogens, failed to attract consumer interest in a 3-year test, "presumably because they didn't think the taste and flavor was acceptable," says a spokesman for the Philip Morris parent company.

Philip Morris USA saw sales fall 4.6% last year, in an American market off by 4% overall. Altria—which in 2006 stopped development of a battery-powered cigarette holder—has also been working smokeless tobacco products to cushion the blow of continued decline in the cigarette market. One such "spit free" product has been shelved; another—so-called moist snuff—is in test-marketing phase. (More Altria stories.)

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