Until recently, an extra six-tenths of an inch was important mostly to carpenters, seamstresses and surgeons. Now, however, that fractional distance has become an $800 million-a-year consideration to the U.S. tobacco industry. Six-tenths of an inch is the difference in length between king-size cigarettes and the 100-mm. size, the hottest new item in the tobacco business. Estimates are that the 100-mms. will get 8% to 10% of the $8 billion cigarette market this year v. only 2% last year, when they were first introduced.
Pall Mall pioneered the popular-price "luxury-length cigarette" in March 1966, and was followed last fall by...
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