history, features, trivia and anecdotes of one of the great classics of sponsorship F1: the tobacco industry.
was in the late 60's when F1 cars began to incorporate advertising into their bodies, partly to cover rising budgets equipment. Most cars no longer have the classic color of the team to adopt the colors and logo of the sponsor. Perhaps this was the beginning of the F1 as pure business, beyond the purely technical and sporting values.
And the tobacco industry which took the lead in this new commercial stage. Thus, we remember the Lotus of the time sponsored by Gold Leaf and then by John Player Special (the famous black and gold cars from the era to era Senna Fittipaldi). Significantly, except for some seasonal Lotus JPS sponsorship kept for 15 years, which is no small thing. This shows the great commitment (or call it safe, long-term investment) Tobacco firms kept to the F1.
Other brands or international groups were incorporated into F1, providing large amounts of money and assuming the role of main sponsors, which resulted in long-term strategic alliances. Thus, Marlboro, after entering the hand F1 BRM McLaren immediately associated with (then, a team on the rise) in 1974. This pooling of interests is well known, gave rise to the famous cars painted in red and white, able to win several world championships until the end of their relationship in 1996.
But the American company reserved an ace up his sleeve. After entering timidly as sponsor of Ferrari, appeared only a small logo with the name of the pilot on the body - Marlboro succeeded in becoming one of the major sponsors of this team from the 90's. In fact, Ferrari has always been reluctant to include advertising on their cars and even more if it was snuff brands. Enzo Ferrari said that "their cars did not smoke, but after the death of the mythical founder opened those doors that seemed insurmountable. However, Ferrari has never changed his classic red bodywork. With Marlboro had no problem with the color "sacred" for the Italian team, in any case was to provide an acceptable dose of white. No wonder, then, that apart from Marlboro, another recent sponsor of Ferrari, a famous brand of the mobile sector - have also colored corporate red and white.
But apart from this great brand, associated with many other teams from the 70, but not always staying true to a certain team. Among the "faithful" can summon Gitanes who wore their colors on the Ligier for many years and Benson and Hedges that distinguished classic yellow Jordan since the late 90's until the demise of the team as such in 2005. By contrast, other brands - such as Camel - have been on various teams over the years: Williams, Lotus, Benetton ...
course, could cite other associations between teams and tobacco, but the most notable in recent years has been the gradual disappearance of tobacco firms of the F1 grid. The increasingly strict laws against advertising of snuff - especially in Europe - has come to expel these companies from one of his favorite commercial spaces. The investment was no longer profitable, a lot of money and very poor visibility (in the sense of marketing). Indeed, the difficulty of not being able to show the audience makes the circuits, and especially the viewers ¬ - eventually alienate these companies F1. Currently only tobacco sponsor Marlboro remains in F1, albeit very secretive in the Ferrari.
However, for years, the tobacco companies put in place clever marketing resources to somehow circumvent the restrictions and thus be able to show the public, albeit in a way - say - in disguise. In almost all cases the base color of the car and was in itself indicative of the sponsoring brand, but also some companies began to loop the loop imagination and attention. As an example, explain some cases.
In Marlboro colors opted to keep removing the explicit name of the brand, while the typical triangle was already significant enough. Nowadays, Marlboro is behind a white bar code. Rothmans brand (in Williams) was inclined to keep the initial R followed by a question. The settlement of Benson and Hedges was really creative, strategically removed some letters of the mark, leaving the remaining letters fully commercial message: "Be on edge." Camel also maintained in his classic yellow and merely replace the trade name for the team in question (eg, Benetton), but maintaining the shape and typography the original logo.
To rarities include British American Tobacco group, which in 1999 wanted to be more original than anyone to promote the two brands BAR (Lucky Strike and 555). However, the FIA \u200b\u200bnot allowed to present two cars with different colors, to be the same team, and then decided to advertise the two brands together to 50% on each car. Thus, the left half of the car showed the colors of Lucky and the right half, the 555. The final aspect of the car could be described as a bit extravagant. Then Lucky stood quietly in the body with its characteristic circle and some funny expressions like "look right "," look left "," look alike ", etc..
For its part, the West took up the tradition brand tobacco and sponsored McLaren until a couple of years the British team. Where applicable, the camouflage was to replace the logo of the brand by the name of the pilot, while maintaining the original form and typography.
Thus, the cars looked at the sides the name "Mika", "David", "Pedro", etc. And on one occasion were more resourceful and used their visit to a country in Eastern-Hungary GP-to change its brand and turn it into "East". The Mild Seven, sponsors Tyrrell, Benetton and then Renault, resorted to translating its name in the Benetton stage (as was done with Camel), while in the stage Renault chose to wear the words "Team Spirit". In the latter case was the happy coincidence of yellow (Renault) and blue (Mild Seven), the same flag of Asturias, Alonso in full fever. You could say this was a marketing "rebound."
To end this article, include an almost humorous tobacco fever. Right in the twilight of this sponsorship, Williams wore advertising NiQuitin brand, a product to combat nicotine addiction!
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