| Hamlet | |
| Type: | Cigar |
| Producedby: | Japan Tobacco |
Hamlet is a brand of cigar produced by the Gallaher Group division of Japan Tobacco. First launched in the United Kingdom in 1964, they are now sold in a number of western European markets in both miniatures and regular length, and were frequently described as "the mild cigar" in their former advertising campaigns.
Hamlet cigars are most famous in the UK for their advertising campaign "Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet", which presented scenes in which a character, having failed dismally at something, is consoled by lighting a Hamlet cigar. The product being advertised was deliberately made unclear until the cigar itself appeared, accompanied by the tune of Bach's Air on the G String played by French musician Jacques Loussier, followed by the slogan "Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet". Classic examples included:
Since the UK banned all tobacco advertising on television, cinema and radio in the 1990s,[1] as did much of Europe during that decade, the adverts are no longer aired. The final cinema adverts were initially shown from 1999 with the special slogan "Happiness will always be a cigar called Hamlet,"[2] although they reverted to the original tagline for a period after the UK tobacco industry refused to cease advertising voluntarily. It was eventually forced to do so by the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002.
The closure of the century-old[3] former J. R. Freeman's factory in Cardiff at which Hamlet's cigars were produced was announced in September 2007, and production transitioned to Gallaher's Ballymena factory by September 2009.[4] The Cardiff factory was demolished the following year.[5] By 2014 plans were afoot to move production again — this time to Lodz, Poland[6] [7] — with the Ballymena facility also to be shuttered by 2017.