Tobacco and China

[Super Tourer]

You may recall that Bernie E has spent the last couple of years or so 'globe trotting', seeking far flung venues for new races.

This is often justified under the guise that F1 is a 'World Championship' and therefore needs to visit as many places as possible and explore new markets, others suspect that it is to chase the tobacco dollar which substantially supports half the F1 grid and is largely not welcome in Europe, and in 2006 will not be welcome at all.

However, the World Health Organization (WHO) convention on banning the promotion of tobacco has been following Bernie around.

China signed up to the WHO remit and announced that tobacco branding could not be carried on the cars. They have now decided that this will extended to all trackside advertising and any where inside the circuit, including VIP areas not even seen by the public.

F1 agreed (a misnomer if ever there was one!), a voluntary code to 'ban' tobacco brands from F1 by 2006, as with all things F1 this has proved to be a moving target, and it has been reported that in fact BE and others are looking at ways to keep the brands in F1.

This can happen through seeking more 'tobacco friendly' venues, although recently Turkey (a new venue in the pipeline) has also signed up to the WHO, along (IIRC) with India, another BE race target. Realistically the tobacco promotional net is closing in, before long it will be unacceptable in pretty much anywhere F1 wants to go, hence Bernie is urging countries to give F1 an 'exception', which is then treading into politically tricky waters, as BE himself found out in the UK.

Many brand managers from the major cigarette companies are now convinced that brand recognition can be served by colour alone, the viewing public having been exposed to the branding for so long that Red and White will automatically register in the mind as 'Marlboro', and yellow will say 'B&H'.

There are others who say that tobacco brands in F1 'put off' other sponsors who would enter F1 but don't want to be associated with tobacco. This may be true and Williams has been able to build a strong portfolio of non-tobacco brands. Although if this were the case surely Renault and McLaren, to name but two, would show tobacco the door if it meant gaining new and 'responsible' partners. It's also fair to say that EJ wasn't exactly fighting off deals over the winter, and he would paint the car whatever colour you like.

However, David Richards from BAR assures us that sponsors are 'queuing up' to be associated with BAR for next season, which is timely, as their major sponsor (BAT) want's out by 2006...

The tobacco brands between them put around $250M into F1 teams in a season, this is aside from the money they spend on trackside advertising and hospitality, etc. Even the most optimistic marketeers know that this is a big gap to fill, should it dry up.

To highlight this, recent new sponsors to F1 have been small investors. Renault's Telefonica deal is worth $16M and Williams NCQuitin and Bud deals are woth $10M between them. The biggest single non-tobacco sponsor is Vodafone who pay $40M to Ferrari, whereas B&H aside, the investment from the tobacco is generally $50m per brand, except Marlboro who write a $86M cheque for Ferrari.

Can F1 give up smoking, it remains to be seen...??

China info from:http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpa...s_art_id=21188

[climb]

methinks much will depend on growth rates of the next few years: if things improve significantly, there'll be room for new sponsoring industries, otherwise it's going to be hard, at least for European companies.