Parliament Cigarettes

Parliament is a brand of cigarettes manufactured by Philip Morris. Parliament cigarettes are distinctive for their recessed paper filter, in contrast to the solid foam filters on other filtered cigarettes.
Parliament cigarettes are generally characterized by a sharp, tangy flavor. Popular nicknames for the full flavor and lights, respectively, are "P-Funks" and "P-Lights." The former takes its name from the popular funk group P-Funk, or Parliament Funkadelic, most famous for its headliner, George Clinton. Though Parliaments represent a small share of Philip Morris's cigarette sales (1.7% based on sales figures in the first quarter of 2005), they are rather popular among smokers in their 20s in the United States and Russia. Parliament cigarette brand can be even considered a kind of a phenomenon of the Russian market. The sales of Parliaments in Russia constitute almost 15%, while on American market the sale of Parliament has fallen to 3.5% from the entire Philip Morris range of products. Therefore, Parliament brand can be now considered the leader of premium-segment on Russian market. In the mid-1970s, Parliament cigarettes were the first to be sold outside of the US. However, Parliament occupied strong positions only in Japan, Argentina, Israel, Turkey, and recently in Russia. On the rest of European markets, Parliament cigarettes are not very well-known. Nevertheless, Philip Morris decided to launch a small but focused campaign, assuming that a huge ad campaign could negatively affect the image of premium cigarette brand.