Vector Group Dubs Nicotine-free Cigarette, Quest

Vector Group Ltd. has named its new, nicotine-free cigarette product Quest, which will be available nationwide beginning in the third quarter of 2002. Vector will also combine the sales and marketing functions of its Liggett Group and Vector Tobacco subsidiaries into a new entity, Liggett Vector Brands Inc. to promote it.

Quest cigarettes will be sold in Lights and Menthol Lights varieties, in both box and soft packs, and will be supported by a $40 million advertising and marketing campaign. Quest cigarettes utilize a proprietary process that enables the production of a tobacco cigarette that is nicotine-free and tastes and smokes like a conventional cigarette. Because they are nicotine-free, Quest cigarettes are said to contain a greatly reduced level of the most potent tobacco specific nitrosamine, known as NNK, believed to be one of the leading contributors of lung cancer.

Moderator Comment: Will this new product bring more
consumers to the cigarette category and slow the pace of those leaving it?

Many consumers want their tobacco and they want to smoke
it too. Any product that promises greater safety is likely to induce trial from
current consumers as well as those new to the category. It is also going to
raise an outcry from anti-smoking activists. That is the reality of cigarette
marketing today. [George
Anderson – Moderator]

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