Marlboro came out with a Limited Edition Zippo style pack for all three of their product lines - Marlboro, Marlboro Menthol and Marlboro Lights. It comes in a sleek silver pack instead of the usual flip-top box, and it opens like a Zippo. The packs have a minimalist yet elegant design with mostly silver tints with the Marlboro logo and the words "Special Edition".
I managed to snag a couple of packs of the Marlboro and Marlboro Menthol packs when I was in KL. The places I went to all ran out of the limited edition Zippo style Marlboro Lights packs. I figured I would complete the collection in Sarawak, but alas, weeks have passed and there's no sign of the limited edition Zippo style packs here. It seems that the product test market is in KL.
This is the front of the Marlboro Special Edition pack - it is dominated by silver with gradients into monotone at the side encasing the letter "M". The top part of the box has the Marlboro logo on it (without the text) and is color coded e.g. Marlboro has a red imprint, Marlboro Menthol has a green one and Marlboro Lights is embossed with a yellow logo. It is all done very elegantly, sleek is the word of the day here...
However, the most interesting thing about the Marlboro Special Edition packs is the opening mechanism. It opens up like a Zippo (the lighter) to reveal two separate foil wrappers enfolding 10 cigarettes each. This preserves the freshness of the cigarette as it can be opened separately. The other noteworthy bit is the sealing mechanism - there is an indentation at the side (squint to see detail) which the semi-circle on the top of the pack goes into to "lock" the pack.
The Marlboro Special Edition Zippo style pack is a great branding experiment in marketing Marlboro as an ultra premium cigarette. The design is impeccable and the elegant color scheme and features makes this one of the best Marlboro limited edition packs to come out in recent memory. Philip Morris moves away from the traditional "Marlboro Man" style design and did a total facelift to repackage Marlboro as an elegant and sleek cigarette.
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