in blue colored packaging. In 2009, R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company changed the flavor descriptors of all the Pall Mall brand hard packs to color designations. The descriptor change occurred because the FDA banned product descriptors such as "Light," "Ultra Light" and "Mild" in 2010. Along with the change in descriptors, the rings and branding on the cigarettes have changed to match both the color of the box and the Pall Mall lettering on the filter for that particular descriptor. The soft packs are still sold with the traditional style packaging and design. In 2015, the FDA required that two varieties of Pall Mall be removed from stores, Deep Set Recessed Filter (blue) and Deep Set Recessed Filter Menthol, as well as Camel Crush Bold and Vantage Tech 13. Pronunciation During the era of cigarette advertising on television and radio, the American pronunciation of the brand was . However, after the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act banned cigarette advertising, the American pronunciation shifted to , which is that for the street in London of that name and has always also been used for the cigarettes by smokers from the United Kingdom. Older smokers in the U.S. who heard the commercials often still use the older pronunciation. Sponsorships Pall Mall sponsored the radio shows Ripley's Believe It or Not in the 1940s and The Big Story in the 1940s and 1950s. The brand was the sponsor of M Squad, a television program which ran on NBC during the late 1950s. Lee Marvin, the show's star, appeared on its commercials during the episodes. It was an alternating sponsor of MGM Parade in the 1955–56 season. Despite the ban on cigarette ads on TV that went into effect on January 2, 1971, Pall Mall ads from the show are seen on Turner Classic Movies intact. Cultural references Kurt Vonnegut, who was a Pall Mall smoker, mentioned the brand in several of his novels. Kurt Vonnegut once said that smoking was "a classy way to commit suicide". In the introduction to his book Welcome to the Monkey House: The Special Edition, Vonnegut said "My brand is Pall Mall. The authentic suicides ask for Pall Malls. The dilettantes ask for Pell Mells." In the 1989 novel The Dark Half by Stephen King, Thad Beaumont's parasitic twin George Stark smokes Pall Malls, which Thad had previously smoked before quitting. In the 2001 video game The Mystery