Tobacco companies are desperate to advertise, and motorsport could be left holding the bag again.

Thought the Ferrari Marlboro "barcode" seemed desperate? Give this a look:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/11/14/british-american-tobacco-tastemakers-dunhill-ahead-kent/

I know from previous threads on the topic of tobacco sponsorship/liveries that most people on here are of the "advertising can't MAKE you smoke" school of thought, but this stuff does seem to work to make people newly take up smoking judging by the correlations between tobacco advertising legality and smoking rates, as pointed out in the article's video. Even these apparently highly wasteful advertising tactics are paying off.

Recently, I've seen top-level drift cars sporting vape company sponsorship, like this:

And it's been happening at lower levels for a few years now. This is part of a pattern, motorsport was the advertisement medium of last resort for tobacco companies before and it looks like it's happening again in the same way for the same reasons:

https://vapenews.com/april-2015/the-vape-space-gets-creative-with-racing/

Racing could end up being, for the second time, the last place morally indifferent enough to take tobacco advertising money. Does anyone else think it's silly to repeat this mistake?

A vape company on the side of a car doesn't encourage me to vape anymore than a Johnnie Walker sticker on an F1 car encourages me to drink a product I don't like. 

So I don't have a problem with those companies advertising in motorsports. Especially in the face of rising costs, lessening sponsorship opportunities from other industries/companies, etc. 

There are only so many people that can afford a watch from Hublot. 

I know if doesn't make you smoke, it doesn't make me smoke either, but the numbers suggest that it is making many people smoke.

I don't think there's a such terrible shortage of potential sponsors out there that racing needs tobacco money. Racing hasn't had tobacco money for most of its history. And the effects of more money aren't always better if you consider the effects of cost escalation on the racing itself. If you thought the days of "garagiste" teams in F1 were cool, well it was tobacco sponsorship that priced them out. Remember when drifting was mostly regular dudes with AE86s and S13s duking it out, and being a pro meant you had enough money for nice paint and proper fasteners for all your body panels? Cost escalation ended that too.

Obviously advertising works, or companies wouldn't do it. I agree that it never made me want to try a product I wasn't interested in, but I can see how it would influence someone who is already interested in that type of product.

As for me, I say advertise what you want. It's not up to the companies or the government to keep me or my kids from using unhealthy products, that's my job.

I bought a bottle of Jamison after watching McNulty drink it all the time in "The Wire", so I cannot say I am immune to product placement/advertising, however no matter what a vape company puts their name on, it will still be a stupid thing in my eyes that I have no interest in ever trying.

Advertising works, especially to younger people. If you think otherwise, well, listen to a kid after they've sat in front of a TV for too long. How many of us remember ad jingles from when we were kids?? I know I remember way, way too many of them.

In reply to T.J. :

Funny about The Wire.  

I can tell you that in one of the later seasons of The Wire, Detective Hurc buys a cell phone for Bubbles so that he can reach Hurc.  

It was not an accident or coincidence that Hurc bought him a Boost Mobile Phone.  I was in middle management of Boost Mobile at the time.  It was a paid product placement and I remember that we thought it was a smart buy.  It really reached our demographic.  

Also funny, I remember that McNaulty scene and remember learning that Bushmills is Protestant whisky and Jameson is Catholic.  

For once, I believe in more strict regulations. Why?

- Advertisement works, or the tobacco companies wouldn't spend money on it.

- Tobacco is a product that making people sick. This can't be denied. It's not alone, but that is not the point.

- When people get sick, they are not the only once that pay. All the tax payers pay. Sick people are expensive to us all.

Less tobacco advertisement -> A more relevant use of my tax money -> Good reason to regulate against it.

Now where can I buy a Bitten & Hisses?

I have 3 Hewlett-Packard computers because of that car!

My dad worked in sales and marketing with B&W in the 70’s and 80’s. The advertising definitely works. And while I agree that they should be removed, at least they no longer allow the sales reps to go onto HS and College campuses and hand out free 4-packs of cigs. My dad said he was drinking the company koolaide that it wasn’t dangerous, but he said the company scientists and docs could convince newton that at any given moment he could start to float in the air. 

By the 80s dad realized that it was all BS, so went to work for Anheiser Busch 

GameboyRMH said:

I know if doesn't make you smoke, it doesn't make me smoke either, but the numbers suggest that it is making many people smoke.

 

Then they're idiots and ANY reason would sway them. I'm not necessarily saying they are idiots if they smoke, but ANYBODY that is marketed to and buys everything mindlessly because they saw it somewhere and can't think critically is doomed and not my problem.

Maybe we should start taking all brands off cars. I can't shake this 3 Ferrarri a week habit, but they keep putting their logos everywhere making me need more. 

crankwalk said:

Then they're idiots and ANY reason would sway them. I'm not necessarily saying they are idiots if they smoke, but ANYBODY that is marketed to and buys everything mindlessly because they saw it somewhere and can't think critically is doomed and not my problem.

It's very easy to "other" people. You feel secure in your position that advertising does not influence you, but research shows otherwise. Maybe you don't believe in research, but research says you should. ;-)

And Ozzy's song "Suicide Solution" made people kill themselves, and Grand Theft Auto turned me into a felon, and how many Slippery Slope Fallacies do you think we can add to this thread. 

crankwalk said:

GameboyRMH said:

I know if doesn't make you smoke, it doesn't make me smoke either, but the numbers suggest that it is making many people smoke.

 

 

Then they're idiots and ANY reason would sway them. I'm not necessarily saying they are idiots if they smoke, but ANYBODY that is marketed to and buys everything mindlessly because they saw it somewhere and can't think critically is doomed and not my problem.

We adults may know better, but as dculberson touched on earlier, a lot of these vaping advertisements are targeted squarely at children who are much more impressionable.

Advertising does work...if it didn't, companies wouldn't do it, and spend a fortune studying exactly where to put their advertising dollar.  At the same time, I do agree that simply putting a logo on the side of a car doesn't "make" people smoke.  Smoking, whether we like it or not, is legal.  I didn't...and still don't...agree with the ban on it in racing. 

I know this isn't a NASCAR specific thread, but tobacco was heavily involved in it (how many years was Winston the title sponsor?).  How many NASCAR fans and NHRA fans smoke?  I'd bet it's a far higher percentage than the non-NASCAR fan.  So put your advertising money where your customer base is.  I'd love to see the old Camel sponsored race car back on the track...and it will not make me want to go out and buy a pack.

If the product is legal, then it should be legal to advertise.  Don't want to see tobacco ads on race cars?  Petition your elected officials to make tobacco products illegal.  I'm not sure that's going to get any traction given the current trend on the legality of smokeables.

The world is a big, bad place with lots of temptation and opportunity for making bad choices.   We're not going to legislate our way to absolute safety, rainbows, and puppy dogs, nor should we try.  Teach your children to make good decisions and lead by example.  If everyone shunned cigarettes, there would be no cigarettes.  You're trying to manage this from the wrong side.  If you want something bad to go away, educate the demand into extinction.  

I've never smoked a cigarette in my life.  And have been an admirer of all kinds of motorsports for most of my existence.  No Marlboro or Camel livery worked on me, because I never wanted to smoke in the first place. 

However, if I had a predisposition, or interest in smoking one of those liveries may very well have swayed me to one of their brands, because racing livery ads absolutely swayed my opinion.

When I was ~13 ish my cousin built this model, or one like it.  I thought it was the coolest damn thing I'd ever seen, and as a result became a Pennzoil fan, used Pennzoil in my mowers, in my HS lawn mowing business, and in my cars when I began driving.  It was tough to give up Pennzoil after the "sludging issues" became more common knowledge.

Later in life, I got roped into a fantasy NASCAR league, I wasn't "into it" like most of the other folks in the league.  They suggested I pick a driver to root for, to help me get into the spirit of things.  This was around the time of one of Tony Stewert's fights ('07 vs. Kurt Busch maybe) I watched the fight, Smoke's interviews, and kind of got a kick out of his temper/attitude, so I picked Smoke as "my guy" for that season.  I kept up with his antics for years after that, and even found myself going to Home Depot instead of Lowe's because Smoke drove a HD car, and that "awful" Johnson fella drove a Lowe's car.  I even got a pair of #20 HD pajama pants for Christmas one year.  

I'm an equal opportunity big box hardware store shopper today, but there was a time, that those liveries had at least some influence.

dculberson said:

 How many of us remember ad jingles from when we were kids?? I know I remember way, way too many of them.

I can sing the makings of a Big Mac, but I don't want one any more today than I did in the 70's when they came out.  

And speaking of "moral indifference",  I'm not certain that government censorship holds the moral high ground over salesmanship.  

z31maniac said:

I have 3 Hewlett-Packard computers because of that car!

Dude, smoking is nothing like as bad for you as buying Hewlett-Packard computers.  What were you thinking?

Duke said:

z31maniac said:

I have 3 Hewlett-Packard computers because of that car!

Dude, smoking is nothing like as bad for you as buying Hewlett-Packard computers.  What were you thinking?

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bigdaddylee82 said:

I kept up with his antics for years after that, and even found myself going to Home Depot instead of Lowe's because Smoke drove a HD car, and that "awful" Johnson fella drove a Lowe's car.

But it didn't make you go to Home Depot when where you needed to go was the grocery store.

z31maniac said:

A vape company on the side of a car doesn't encourage me to vape anymore than a Johnnie Walker sticker on an F1 car encourages me to drink a product I don't like. 

So I don't have a problem with those companies advertising in motorsports. Especially in the face of rising costs, lessening sponsorship opportunities from other industries/companies, etc. 

There are only so many people that can afford a watch from Hublot. 

 

I’m calling BS on this. 

If your favorite brand of whiskey (or whatever the berkeley you like) only advertised on Tampon boxes and the back of Fruity Pebbles, I can pretty much bet you’d think it was much less cool. 

Advertising works. On everyone. 

It does not, however, make anyone run to the store to buy a product. It creates brand recognition, and helps us make associations between products and things we think are cool (or not cool). 

On a related note, being on the job search meant that I got a lot of inquiries from tobacco companies.  Apparently, it is getting harder to get people to sell carcinogens to children.