Making Pipe Smoking Sexy??

[briarfanatic]

So, I was reading the latest nov/dec issue of Tobacco Business International magazine, and came across an article by Erik Stokkebye titled "How Do We Make Pipe Smoking Sexier? Pipes have the same trend potential as cigars---let's leverage it!".
I could not find the current issue or article anywhere online yet, so I will just share some lines from the article:
Discussing low cost drug store brands:

"We need to move away from this focus on affordability and make pipe smoking a brand experience that's associated with a lifestyle of appreciating the finer things. By making superior products worth the investment, we can once again make pipe enjoyment emblematic of a choice of luxury".
The article discusses the growing popularity of pipe smoking among young men, and the beginning of a "pipe boom" like the "cigar boom" of the mid 1990's.
What are everyone's opinions on this whole "pipe boom"? We have seen various discussions on this forum with others noticing growing popularity of pipe tobacco, newer members every day, and out of stocks on pipe tobacco's.
With proposed $50.00 per pound tax on pipe tobacco, smoking a pipe may become the status symbol that cigars became in the 1990's.....
Do you see an increase in prices on estates.....pipe artisans dramatically raising prices on new pipes because they can get more money from customers....more out of stocks....price inflation on popular tobaccos.....??
This article was from a tobacco industry publication that retailers, manufacturers, and distributors read. Reading these publications over the past year, the industry is really trying to create this pipe boom (or take advantage of it).
Opinions?

 

[sfsteves]

briarfanatic said:

"With proposed $50.00 per pound tax on pipe tobacco, smoking a

pipe may become the status symbol that cigars became in the 1990's.

A $50 per pound tax on tobacco would make pipe smoking prohibitive rather than a symbol of status. You need to realize that the goal of government agencies that impose these taxes is behavior control, not elevation of status.

 

[briarfanatic]

RE sfsteves: No denying that the increased taxes are meant to be prohibitive. However, even at $50.00 per pound tax, pipe smoking will remain considerably cheaper than premium cigars an a per smoke basis. With some people, higher prices are actually a draw. It causes an item to appear of a higher quality than if it was priced lower.

 

[phred]

What are everyone's opinions on this whole "pipe boom"? We have seen various discussions on this forum with others noticing growing popularity of pipe tobacco, newer members every day, and out of stocks on pipe tobacco's.

It's interesting to me to see the various impulses that feed into the "pipe boom" - the regulation of smoking in public leading to some backlash, the retro/hipster/nostalgic impulse to latch onto something with that 'bygone' vibe, and now marketing from the industry itself attempting to capitalize on and promote growth in what is, let's be honest, something of a niche market.

 

[escioe]

"How Do We Make Pipe Smoking Sexier? Pipes have the same trend potential as cigars---let's leverage it!".
"We need to move away from this focus on affordability and make pipe smoking a brand experience that's associated with a lifestyle of appreciating the finer things. By making superior products worth the investment, we can once again make pipe enjoyment emblematic of a choice of luxury".

This marketing school speak makes me want to puke each time i hear it. 'Brand experience' is a slogan without intellectual content.
It's not surprise that business speak abbreviates to BS.
Moreover, I don't think this is an especially worthwhile goal. There was a flyfishing boom in the 1990s, and for a few years after the rivers were overcrowded and the market got saturated with garbage devised by marketeers.
My take is that folks like Greg Pease and Peter Hescheen are already and have been for years making 'superior products worth the investment.' I don't particularly give a damn if a celebrity is smoking Maltese Falcon. Obviously I want the hobby to grow rather than contract, but I think it has to happen naturally, as it has in the last decade, with people who are actually, authentically interested in pipe smoking, rather than because it's part of a trend.

 

[puffy]

The cigar boom was in the mid to late nineties.I watched Cigar prices skyrocket out of site.It seems to me that I see the beginnings of that in the pipe smoking world these days.I hope we don't price any would be boom out before it gets started.I'm just curious if someone knows how cigar sales compare with the boom days.Say in 1996-1997.

 

[zack24]

First-I think pipe smoking is sexy (especially if it's my wife Greta and her daughter Vanessa smoking in Italy a few weeks ago..) When we go out to an outside bar, we always take pipes and I'll carry a couple of cobs to give away. We're converting people one at a time...(Oh- and Greta actually does smoke a pipe several times a week...Vanessa just thinks it looks cool...- now if I could only teach them how to correctly hold a pipe... The numbers of pipers are also moving up- the number of college students that smoked a tobacco pipe last year was up to over 5%- a jump of 1% from the year before. I think a lot of this may be due to the influence of hookah bars introducing people to the social side of smoking a pipe...

 

[drwatson]

I think THREE NUNS tobacco has a head start on this. Look that those models they use for it, I would be willing to bet they are not real nuns! But they are sexy! (GOD forgive me).

 

[mso489]

Naturally, the industry publication would want to pump the business up. That's their job, but a small part of

the picture. Groups of conspicuously well-off people in public doing little "stage productions" of their pipe

smoking might or might not inspire imitation and better business in pipes and pipe tobacco. I'm all for the

high end pipe business, most particularly artisan carvers who really go beyond craftsmanship into sculpture.

But the bed rock of pipe smoking will always be affordable pipes smoked by people of moderate means.

It's a simple pleasure and a social activity, even if now somewhat underground. If the TBI magazine can get

something going in support of high end pipe retail and especially pipe artisans, I say fair enough. I think

Missouri Meerschaums and the $50 briar pipe will always be the bed rock of this interest. As that goes, so

goes the tobacco pipe.

 

[mso489]

zack24, your pictures popped up after I entered my post, and I am in no way referring to your wife and daughter

relative to the high end pipe discussion. They look like they are having fun, and I suspect they did sell a few pipes

to spectators, if not directly. Nice they can have a bowl in public without a big kerfluffle. Ask the waiter to hold

a table for me.

 

[pylorns]

Putting on my marketing hat: Pipe smoking just needs hollywood to make it look cool again. The Lord of the rings anyone? How about the Hobbit? It's done a number on a certain portion of the population.
You have some more current period pieces with a lead smoking a pipe and boom. Not a villan, not a supporting actor, but you put one of the newer younger actors out there smoking his or her pipe - across multiple movies and its done.
Now what that would do to the industry I don't know.
Many actors actually liked smoking on the set because it gave them something to do with their hands. I want to say if you watch Brad Pitt, in movies where he doesn't have a prop in his hands he fumbles with what to do with them, which is why you see him eating a lot...

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-actors-who-do-exact-same-thing-in-every-movie_p2/

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I am a big fan of old movies, and I was noticing the other day while watching a Bing Crosby flick, High Society, that everytime a character entered the scene they would light a cigarette out of a pack, but the cigarette would disappear after lighting it. Even Bing was lighting cigarettes, and then they'd disappear. He had two scenes where he would pack a bowl in his pipe, but he never lit the pipe. The pipe just disappeared as well. This is not just this movie, but a lot of the old movies did this as well.
It's interesting, mostly because this was way before the ban ever started on smoking in movies and TV. But, it did make pulling a cigarette out of a silver case seem like a casual "adult" thing to do, without having to deal with awkward smoke on the set or inconsistency in the length of cigarette having been burned during a heavily edited conversation scene.
But, as far as media making smoking sexy, I find that there are many more books that include main characters that smoke than movies. But, there are still movies that make smoking a main part of the characters. Johnny Depp in Ninth Gate comes to mind, as the cigarette is such an integral part of the symbolism. Media is always going to be the most powerful influence on a hobby or pastime. Maybe we pipe smokers should just write more books and scripts :D

 

[lochinvar]

I thought I had already brought sexy pipe smoking back? I'm hurt.
I think the pipe market is on an uptick, I just don't think the industry is happy with who it is, or the level its at. It seems to me a lot of the newer guys were guys who maybe saw it and tried it when they saw it in LOTR, liked it and kept going, bringing along their friends in low, but steadily increasing numbers. In other words its in the "geek" strata. Its slow, organic growth, and really is expanding the base of the business, not simply top loading with trend tourists.
What this article is really trying to get at (I perceive) is they want to break into the same strata that embraced the cigar wholeheartedly one year and dropped the next, the people who are trend rather than style driven, the "slave to trend." They truly do bust the roof off in growth for a few years, but they drop off like a rock at the next new shiny thing. And while I know the dollar signs are alluring, but they are not what you should chase. Because at the end, the attrition will be a killer. The trend brands and shops that spring up during the boom will fall to the gutter at the bust, after spending years taking market share from established brands, potentially causing a drop in quality for all or a shrinkage in supply from the closure of long time tobacco houses.
If they want sustainable growth, they need to focus on new talented carvers and quality tobacco houses.

 

[andrew]

I'm already making pipe smoking sexy.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I know that we keep hearing that RYO is skewing the pipe smoking stats, but I think that RYO is also the gateway to pipes. At least this is true for my area. I came to pipes via RYO. Here, you pay $10 for a bag of tobacco, $10 for tubes, and then you go to the RYO club next door and use their machines which is Cigarette industry machines that crank your tobacco into tubes for a $12 contribution, and viola $30+ for a carton of cigarettes, approximately.
But, then the RYO started selling corncobs to save the extra $12 "donation" and tube prices. So, there is a bunch of people smoking RYO in pipes. I see them everywhere, cars, parks, walking their dogs, puffing RYO bagged tobacco in pipes, men and women. The RYO place has also started selling those hot as heck clay pipes. And, the industrial machine rollers clubs are under fire by the large cigarette industry also, forcing many of them out of business.
The obvious next step is going to one of four of our bustling tobacconist pipe shops for real pipe tobacco and real briar and real advice on how to smoke a pipe correctly (traditionally anyway). But, this was my gateway to pipes, and obviously, I am not alone here on that. I saw our mayor puffing a clay churchwarden the other day outside the police station.
Prices do push people into pipes, just not as described above. It just makes more sense on a financial level to switch to the pipe. Even on more expensive B&M tin prices, it is still cheaper than our $50 a carton prices.
BTW - RYO in a corncob is pretty good. At least when you're fighting the all mighty nic fit. Just puff slow... and, of course inhaling is to be expected by the reforming cigarette-a-holic :: until they learn the proper way to smoke the pipe.

 

[scrapyardape]

I don't want pipe smoking to become "sexier". The last thing I want is a boatload of hipster types suddenly deciding to take up the pipe and creating an out of control ballooning of prices.

 

[woodsroad]

Mr. Ape, we are running parallel this evening.

I started smoking cigars in 1991, 6 months before the start of the Cigar Boom.
I do not need to see pomegranate and lime tinged blends. I do not need to see fine, aged tobacco blending stocks diverted for Drew Estate Acid Pipe Tobacco.
If you are a Hipster, listen here:

Pipe smoking is for geezers. It's all about slobber, and drivel and foul breath and hot chicks calling the vice squad on you. It's something that the old, infirm and mentally impaired do to pass the time between diaper changes. Smokin' babes see a pipe smoker and all they can think of is "shrinkage". Do not go there. E-cigs are nirvana.

 

[scrapyardape]

@woodsroad....
As Teal'c would say: "Indeed"
(though I might not mind some lime tinged tobacco) :D

 

[cosmicfolklore]

You know, since switching to a pipe, I have felt the urge to wear girl pants and get a nice face tatoo.

 

[nscoyote]

For those thinkign $50/lb taxes is out of line. we pay $5.25 per 50g of tobacco tax then sales tax is added on top of that of 15% of retail price. I kind of prefer the slow rise to mainstream, if there wasa pipe on every corner the anti crowd would be up in arms making pipe smoking even harder for us