Winston is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by ITG Brands, subsidiary of Imperial Tobacco in the United States and by Japan Tobacco outside the U.S. The brand is named after the town where R. J. Reynolds started his business which is Winston-Salem, North Carolina. , Winston has the seventh-highest U.S. market share (2 percent) of all cigarette brands, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Maxwell Report. This market share has been falling since 2003, when it peaked at 3.92 percent, although Winston has consistently been in the top 10 cigarette brands by U.S. market share since 2001, according to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. History Winston was introduced in 1954 by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and quickly became one of the top-selling cigarette brands, using the slogan "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should". It became the number one cigarette sold in the world by 1966, a position it held until 1972 when Marlboro overtook the brand. In the 1980s, Winston was the most favored brand in Puerto Rico, thanks to their advertising slogan "Winston y Puerto Rico: No hay nada mejor" (Winston and Puerto Rico: There is nothing better). Winston then became the #2 cigarette, a position it continues to maintain today under ownership of Japan Tobacco outside of the U.S. while the American version of the brand has faced steadily declining sales, dropping to sixth place by 2005 in the last national survey. The American version of Winston is also known for its more recent claim of becoming additive-free in the late 1990s. This in turn led to a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission requiring Winston to clarify subsequent advertisements that the lack of additives did not result in a safer cigarette. In 1999, R.J. Reynolds was spun off from RJR Nabisco and subsequently sold its non-U.S. operations to Japan Tobacco. On July 15, 2014, Reynolds American (R.J. Reynolds parent company) agreed to purchase the Lorillard Tobacco Company for $27.4 billion and as a result, (to alleviate antitrust concerns) Winston, along with the Kool, Maverick, and Salem cigarette brands, was sold to Imperial Tobacco for $7.1 billion. On June 12, 2015, Reynolds American and Lorillard completed their merger and Winston officially fell under ownership of Imperial tobacco spinoff ITG brands. Sponsorship NASCAR Beginning in 1971, Winston