The Marlboro advertising campaign that was launched in the 1960s outstripped virtually all of its predecessors, by revamping an image without having to change any characteristic of the product itself.

It also chose not to play up any attribute that the product might plausibly be proclaimed to possess—not smooth taste, not fine tobaccos, not anything of the kind.

It simply created a new marketplace perception out of wholly conjured-up imagery, the Marlboro Man.

This romantically rugged and independent Western figure touched a nerve for Americans—or perhaps more accurately, a yearning;  a sense of what people inwardly and ardently wished they could be.  

He proved almost literally irresistible.  Just by choosing the brand associated with this icon, ordinary people seemed to feel they could in some measure take on and project his persona.

Choose it they did, quickly propelling Marlboro from a second-tier brand to a marketing powerhouse.

Considering that they had been given no more reason to make this choice than a claim that Marlboro represented a collection of personal attributes that were plainly impossible in a paper tube filled with chopped leaves, why did people allow themselves to be steered in this manner?

The most important factor to remember is that if Marlboro had ever attempted to argue directly and logically that its products were manly or independent, the company would have been quickly hooted and guffawed into oblivion.  But by making the same claim indirectly via compelling imagery and symbolism, all it needed for the assertion to become "true" was a bit of repetition.