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American brand of menthol cigarettes

Newport is an American brand of menthol cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. The brand was originally named for the seaport of Newport, Rhode Island.

Newport was launched in 1957 by the Lorillard Tobacco Company. Because of this, Newport has gained a commanding share of the African American market; a 2005 survey stated that 49.5% of all cigarette sales to African Americans were Newport cigarettes. Newport has been the second best selling cigarette brand in the United States since 1996, trailing only Altria's Marlboro brand. A 2004 study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the percentage of teen Newport smokers doubled between 1989 and 1996. Researcher Karen Gerlach indicated that Newport made the most significant progress with the Hispanic and White American teen markets in those years. A 1998 Massachusetts Department of Public Health report indicated that Newport's alongside unfiltered Camel cigarettes contained the highest levels of nicotine in cigarettes on the market. In the following six years, Lorillard Tobacco increased the amount of nicotine in Newport by 10%. In 2015, the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company acquired Newport and the entire Lorillard Tobacco Company for $27.4 billion. Until June 2016, ITG Brands continued to make Newport's for Reynolds in the former Lorillard plant in Greensboro, North Carolina. Newport comprises about 35 percent of menthol cigarette sales in the U. S. It has been the most popular mentholated cigarette brand sold in the United States since 1993. Once TV advertisements were banned in the United States, Lorillard advertised the brand through poster advertisements. The Newport ads in this theme range from 1980 to present day and feature the "Newport Pleasure" or "Alive with Pleasure" campaign slogans. The latter slogan provides the viewer with a subconscious health claim. Additionally, the pleasure aspect of these campaigns weighs an important part of youth targeting, portraying Newport cigarettes as fun and enjoyable and, subconsciously, sexy and sexual.

Newport is mainly sold in the United States, except in Massachusetts and California, where menthol cigarettes are banned.

A lawsuit against the Lorillard Tobacco Company alleged that in the late 1960s, company vans were used to make regular trips to housing projects where free Newport cigarettes were given to children. Evidence showed that the deceased plaintiff died of lung cancer, but that she started smoking at age nine after receiving free Newport cigarettes near the black playground in Boston. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld $35 million of damages against Lorillard Tobacco Company while reversing other issues of damages.

In the 1960s, Lorillard specifically targeted African Americans to sell Newport cigarettes. Lorillard increased its African American market budget by 87% over 1968 due to increased efforts marketing its menthol cigarette, Newport, to the African American market. Government surveys in 2011 revealed that menthol cigarettes dominated 30% of the overall market, and over 80% of black smokers prefer menthol as opposed to 22% of non Hispanic white smokers. In 2016, it was reported that Newport was the brand of choice for nearly 60% of black smokers.

In September 2016, it was reported that R. J. Reynolds was specifically targeting black teenagers and young adults to sell Newport cigarettes. Reynolds American Inc., the parent firm that owns Newport, was pushing the brand on people in their 20s — with pop ups at music festivals like Las Vegas' Electric Daisy Carnival, a notorious destination for teen partiers, which was recently pressured to raise its age requirements. Dubbed "Newport Pleasure Lounges", the air conditioned party trucks were replete with games like digital darts. Newport's could be purchased in these lounges for $1 per pack. Reynolds had set aside $50 million for such initiatives in 2016. A study from the Stanford University School of Medicine had discovered that menthol cigarette manufacturers created very direct marketing campaigns designed to attract young black smokers. Far from being a catchall effort, Reuters says these campaigns were concerted attacks on African American teens: "A recent analysis of the data found school neighborhoods were increasingly likely to have lower prices and more advertising for Newport cigarettes as the proportion of African American students rose. The same was true of neighborhoods with higher proportions of children aged 10 to 17."

In May 2010, a report was written where the popular sport shoe company Nike copied the Swoosh logo from Newport. The comparison was made, because Newport was introduced in 1957 and used a logo they call the "spinnaker", while Nike was formed on January 25, 1964, as Blue Ribbon Sports by Bill Bowerman and Philip Knight, and officially became Nike, Inc. in 1978. The Nike swoosh is a logo design created in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, over a decade after Newport cigarettes were launched. Despite some claims, no specific evidence has ever been found that Nike stole the logo from Newport. In 2006, Lorillard and Nike sued graphic designer Ari Saal Forman after he released his Ari Menthol 10s shoes, which combined the design of the Nike Air Force 1 with Newport's spinnaker and colors. According to Forman, the shoes were "dedicated to the two brands who have taken the most and given the least." As a result of the lawsuit, Forman is prohibited from owning a pair of Menthol 10s.

In December 2016, it was reported that R. J. Reynolds would start selling marijuana cigarettes called "Newport Nirvana". However, Newport did not develop marijuana cigarettes which would be available for purchase in 2017. In November 2016, a site called TMZWorldNews published an article reporting that the cigarette brand Newport planned to introduce marijuana cigarettes dubbed the "Newport Nirvana". However, Snopes reported that TMZWorldNews is a fake news website appropriating the combined brandings of popular gossip site TMZ and the national newscast ABC World News Tonight. None included a disclaimer warning readers its content consisted entirely of falsehoods.