Ferrari denies illegal subliminal tobacco branding on F10 car
A recent report in British newspaper The Times revealed that Ferrari may be using subliminal advertising on the livery of its 2010 formula one car. To be more precise, the British reporters argued that the ‘barcode’ branding present on the engine cover of the Ferrari F10 resembles the cigarette packaging of Ferrari’s sponsor Philip Morris.Consequently, the UK government was apparently urged to look into this matter and solve this issue before the 2010 British Grand Prix , scheduled at Silverstone in July.
However, in a media statement on their official website, Ferrari have denied such reports, insisting that their car has 
never featured any kind of cigarette branding since 2007, “even in countries where local laws would still have permitted it.”“These reports are based on two suppositions: that part of the graphics featured on the Formula 1 cars are reminiscent of the Marlboro logo and even that the red colour which is a traditional feature of our cars is a form of tobacco publicity,” said the Ferrari statement.
“Neither of these arguments have any scientific basis, as they rely on some alleged studies which have never been published in academic journals. But more importantly, they do not correspond to the truth.”
“The so called barcode is an integral part of the livery of the car and of all images coordinated by the Scuderia, as can be seen from the fact it is modified every year and, occasionally even during the season. Furthermore, if it was a case of advertising branding, Philip Morris would have to own a legal copyright on it,” added the statement.
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Source:www.autoevolution.com 30/4/10
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25 Responses to “Ferrari denies illegal subliminal tobacco branding on F10 car”
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What is don’t understand is why do Ferrari still want to keep the Malboro barcode after all these years.
It must be due to the fact they are being paid handsomely by Malboro to do so – even if that means its indirect advertising!
It’s not subliminal advertising: it’s brand association. Malboro have built themselves a de facto logo with the barcode. It’s like Nike’s ’swoosh’ or McDonalds’ golden arches – you see them and you know what they mean without needing a brand name to go with them.
I agree with you that it is not subliminal advertising. I’m surprised a physician used that term inaccurately, but I guess it gets more media attention.
Nike and McDonald’s ’swoosh’ and arches are truly brand-associated, but they do not have the same restrictions on advertising as does the tobacco industry.
In the case of Marlboro the association between barcode logo and brand only works for those who know the particular history and make the connection. If you just look at a pack of Marlboros you would not associate the brand with the barcode as everything on sale has one; if you started following motorsports recently you wouldn’t know until someone told you the story. I’ve heard kids call the Ferrari stripes a piano sign and say it looks like the curb strips on the track. Not much cause for hysteria about incitement to smoke.
The Financial Times recently did a special report on the top global brands. In the graphic showing the top ten, the Marlboro brand was represented by their name in white and red while others like Apple, McDonald’s, Vodafone and China Mobile were shown as their very recognizable logos. Presumably if the barcode were an identifier for Marlboro it would have been used.
Philip Morris must be having a smile with this kerfuffle as now a larger public will maybe associate the barcode with Marlboro. And there are barcodes everywhere!
Very true. I only recently started following F1 seriously, and had no idea what they were on about. I have no more association between a bar code and Marlboro than I do between a golf ball and an alligator.
This really is a lot of fuss about nothing. Of course the barcode branding is there to represent Marlboro. The barcodes are positioned on the car in the places where “Marlboro” used to be positioned, and to say otherwise would be a bare faced lie. I personally couldn’t care less. Seeing the bar code on the Ferrari engine cover is no more likely to make me or any other intelligent human being fork out some cash for a box of ciggies than reading Marlboro would.
By the way… why is it wrong to put cigarette sponsors on racing cars, but it’s ok to put alcohol sponsors on them? I don’t remember all those road safety campaigns saying “Don’t smoke and drive”…
Because alcohol isn’t a social taboo the way smoking is.
In the road saftey context it should be. It just seems wrong given the FIA’s campaign to “Make roads safe” that a team like Force India can have 4 alcohol brands on its car.
So after alcohol goes..whats gonna be next?
Society has become rather more stupid over the years. They had to blame it on something so the blamed smokes and soon the booze. More people die eating too much cheese and fast food annually when compared to smokes. Or what about people who die each year due to the stress of working with stupid colleagues?
Why not ban advertisements of Coke, Starbucks, McDonalds and all types of Candy that contain sugar while their at it? Coke is addicitve and causes cancer, too much coffee messes up your insides, according to Morgan Spurlock too much McD’s can kill you and too much Candy will leave you with diabetes.
Looks like by the end of the century…advertisements will be banned, period, because too much of everything and anything..will eventually kill..think about it.
Id always thought the barcode thing looked a mess and wasnt sure if it was Marlboro or not, now i know for sure, plus the authorities have helped give free publicity for both brands. congratultions!
Exactly, I bet Marlboro are laughing all the way to the bank with all this extra free publicity.
i didnt know about the barcode…or care that much either. funnily enough im more interested in the tech side and the racing over what sponsors are doing with their logo’s !
There’s nothing subliminal at all. It was only last year I found out the barcode was actually the Malboro Barcode. I had no idea… So what’s to say people who aren’t hardcore fans will realise either? They won’t!
The deal with Philip Morris ends next year and the name will be changed after that. I can’t remember when it ended but Mercedes West Mclaren only stoped a few years ago.
I do not agree with this stlye of advertising but I have still yet to meet a 11 year old child who ran out to buy a packet of Malboro/B&H/Camel/West etc because a team won a race. Does anyone else remember in the 70’s when advertising was banned at horse eventing? The names of the horses were changed to Sanyo Washing machine, JVC super VHS,Everest Apollo. Hardly subliminal.
No-one in the history of mankind (or at least I reckon) has gone out and bought a packet of cigarettes because a F1 team won a race – it’s brand awareness. It makes a person more likely to cave to peer pressure and then increases the likelyhood of them using that brand.
I think it’s a pity cash-strapped F1 teams can’t utilise what used to be, and probably still is, a lucrative source of sponsorship money. Surely people aren’t so stupid as to want to take up smoking just because it’s written on the side of a car?
Me thinks that with such a long quiet wait between races, F1 journos are just wanting any kind of article!
I don’t unsterstand why this has come up now, when its been obvious for years.
I’m not sure that I would agree that everyone associates the Barcode with Marlboro. I remember only a few years ago a Barcode being on the BAR Honda and it didn’t represent Marlboro. Several people I knew who didn’t know anything about F1 thought that the BAR team was owned by some sort of BARcode company and they advertised the codes on the car. It didn’t quite explain the Barcode on the Ferrari but they didn’t seem to care or notice.
thats interesting!
To answer the question on the difference between Alcohol and Cigerette advertisement.
You can drink responsibly. Eg having a few drinks are not a health risk of any significance. There is evidence that some alcohols such as red wine can provide health advantages.
But you cannot smoke responsibly. Whether you have one cigarette per day or 50 its not good for you. There is no safe nunmber to have in a day.
Also if i over do it with the drink i might vomit and have a sore head. But even one cigarette incoveniences everyone around the smoker as the smoke blows over everyone else and can damage their health.
Yes there are social issues with alcohol, but not all people who drink cause problems. Where as all smokers cause problems, weather its long term health issues clogging up hospitals or just passive smoking of innocent children.
Ferrai and Philip Morris are being sneaky, the Bar code to me has never ment anything else but Marlboro.
If there are so innocent, why does Ducati have bar codes too? Do ferrari sponser Ducati too?
I first bought a Marlboro pack due to it’s logo on the side of Senna’s car. I was 14 years old. I smoked for 11 years and quit smoking 3 months ago because of my first son. I disagree that a logo in the side of a car doesn’t change anything. I have always been a fan of Senna, and because of that, I started smoking. A pack of Marlboro, to me, it’s his walking McLaren. About things that helped me get over tobacco, one of them is not to see it associated with the sport I am a huge fan of and the other is the law that forbids smoking in public closed places. About the barcode, I didn’t realise til now it had this association with Marlboro. I agree it being subliminal because the effects it may cause are not all concious, and I do believe, as a former smoker, they exist. Seeing the barcode is actually very much the same as being a former smoker, you never really get over it. You’ll always remember, even if it doesn’t have Marlboro written on it.
I havent read all the responses above so if this has been explained before i apologise!
Ferrari run their team branding slightly differently to the other teams, they sell the whole car to one company (currently that is Marlboro) who then sub contract the space on the car out to other sponsors and providers of technical help and equipment to the team.
Santander have this year purchased a large proportion of the space that marlboro sell on and if I am correct they will take over the contract from them for selling the space from the end of this season when their association with Mclaren ends and Marlboros contract with Ferrari runs out.
Regardless of whether the barcode is subliminal or not, there is absolutely nothing subliminal about the official team name, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro.
Just the fact that Marlboro gets spoken/written in any official mention of Ferrari coming from the FIA, FOM, and Ferrari (not to mention other media sources), keeps the name of the tobacco company fresh in people’s minds. It may not entice anyone to start smoking, but it might be enough for a smoker to switch brands instead of quitting.
Luckily, the public’s general awareness about tobacco brands is on the decline.
Philip Morris is not a charity. He doesn’t hand Ferrari, Ducati, or whoever, hundreds of millions of dollars for no return on that investment.
If Philip Morris was a charity, he might, first of all, want to put something into every countries health budget.
I think the biggest issue here is not that the ‘logo’ represents Marlboro it is that Ferrari are denying so.