So you thought Tobacco advertising was banned

If you’re anything like me, you will have followed Formula 1 a bit throughout your lifetime, and while I lack a television these days, when I did have one at home I did on occasion spend a good 3 hours of my life watching a Grand Prix. In the 2000s a big change took place which meant Tobacco advertising was slowly banned in Formula 1 in many different countries, I am now lead to believe that all countries have banned the practise.

Since I was aware of this ‘fact’ I thought that all teams had removed their Tobacco advertising entirely. We no longer saw ‘West’ or ‘Benson and Hedges’, and I thought, we no longer saw ‘Marlboro’ on Ferrari cars. But one thing still bothered me. If Marlboro was gone, why did Ferrari still have a massive badge on their cars, the same size, shape and colours of the Marlboro mark, albeit in Barcode form?

Well, turns out, somewhat obviously to me now, that it is indeed the case that Marlboro still sponsor Ferrari, and that the ‘barcode’ mark is for anyone who knows the cars in their traditional form, a subliminal callback to the Marlboro logo, and their brand.

I found this genuinely shocking, because far from being an inside joke that we all get, like when you see the company logo at one race, and then a funny parody one at another (to get around the rules), this subliminal non-logo is now seen at every single race. The government is always complaining about how Tobacco companies are sneakily marketing to everyone, why haven’t they stopped the one thing right under their nose?