When I was in Europe recently and in the Middle East in 2004 I smoked Marlboro Reds (as my preferred brand of Marlboro Medium 100s were hard to come by). In both cases they looked like regular Marlboros except that the "Kings" were sold in a hard pack and they were a little longer than hard pack Marlboros stateside. They were as long and had the same length filter as soft pack Marlboros here. They were also just a little lighter in taste.
I noticed that in both cases these Marlboros were licensed from a distributor in Switzerland.
After smoking these "Reds" for six months I grew to like them. Upon returning to the States I purchased a hard pack of Marlboro Reds and practically choked on my first puff they were so strong!
I also liked the price. $10/carton in Dubai and about $0.70/pack in Ukraine.
When I was stationed in Turkey in 1967-8, Marlboros were a hot item on the gray market. There were also counterfeit Marlboros out there. Pretty good packaging, but the cigarettes were typical Turkish tobacco. Horrible things. I don't know what the point was, except to get a higher price. A lot of Turks smoked Marlboros, and I suspect that a lot of them were fakes. It was a sort of status symbol, really.