Peter Stuyvesant is a brand of cigarettes currently owned by British American Tobacco and manufactured by the American Cigarette Company. In Australia and New Zealand, the brand is manufactured by Imperial Tobacco. The cigarette brand is named after Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General of New Netherland, later New York State, New Jersey, Delaware and parts of surrounding states.
History
The Peter Stuyvesant brand was initially launched in South Africa in 1954 and later test marketed in New York in 1957; the brand was officially launched worldwide in the same year and Peter Stuyvesant is sold in about 30 countries around the world. The original slogan for the brand was, "The scent of the big wide world: Peter Stuyvesant." This popular slogan was created in 1958 by Swiss graphic designer Fritz Bühler, and lasted until the 1980s, when it was changed to "The taste of the whole wide world." British American Tobacco bought the brand in 2003.
In the 1980s, the brand enjoyed an increase in sales due to various advertising campaigns in cinemas and by offering the cigarettes to passengers of the Dutch airline company, KLM. The brand is sold in 55 countries and is popular in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, as well as most parts of Europe, but is less known in the United States.
In 2015, a tax increase in Malaysia saw Peter Stuyvesant, as well as various other BAT branded cigarettes, increase in price. Peter Stuyvesant and Pall Mall cigarettes went from 12.30 to 15.50 Malaysian ringgit, an increase of 3.20 Malaysian ringgit. As of 2022 a pack of 20 Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes costs R33 (South African rand).
Peter Stuyvesant Foundation
The Peter Stuyvesant Foundation was established in 1965 and has played a role in public policy and arts proposals, one of which was the City Sculpture Project in the United Kingdom. This project, directed by the Arts Council of Great Britain, commissioned sculptures which were displayed across eight different cities in the UK, the funding for which was provided by the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation in an attempt to create publicity and engagement with the corporation. The sculptures were envisioned to be new and made specifically for their locations, and after their stint of six months in the city-centres, were to be auctioned off to ‘city councils, industrial and commercial organisations or private citizens’, though none of them became permanent fixtures and multiple were vandalised or destroyed.
Peter Stuyvesant Collection
The Peter Stuyvesant Collection began in 1960 and precedes the creation of the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation, though it is better thought of as a predecessor. Its inception came after an attempt was made at the Turmac cigarette factory in Zevenaar, an eastern village in the Netherlands, to raise worker morale and increase worker productivity by hanging large scale paintings over the heads of employees, from the ceiling of the factory floor. Actually, the initiative was not taken by the company or its director, Alexander Orlow, but it was proposed by two semi-state organizations that intended to promote modern art and culture in the service of peace, the Fondation Européenne de la Culture and the Nationale Kunststichting. They commissioned thirteen painters from thirteen European countries to visualise the concept 'joie de vivre', and these were hung in the production plant in Zevenaar.
When this 'experiment' proved to be a success, Orlow asked the then director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to act as advisor for the expansion of the collection, which led to a rapid growth. These works regularly circulated between the Amsterdam headquarters and the various factories around the world, in Spain, France, Italy and Switzerland. They were also shown in museums in the Netherlands and abroad. In time, this innovation became quite beloved and, as such, was broadened from the original thirteen artworks to include many more, expanding as well to the corporate offices of Turmac in Amsterdam. The collection was named after the company’s production of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes before its merger with liquor and cigarette company Rothmans, and then its subsequent takeover by British American Tobacco in 2000. In 2008, Rothmans decided to sell the collection.