Ferrari have dropped the ‘Pack of Marlboros’ graphic for the Barcelona GP
Ferrari has decided to end the controversy over ‘subliminal’ advertsing on their F1 car and livery and have removed the ‘Pack of Marlboros’ before Barcelona.
A couple of weeks ago we reported that Ferrari have been accused of running subliminal tobacco advertising on their F1 cars, an allegation Ferrari strenuously denied.
To be honest we can’t know for sure whether there was an intent to subliminally suggest a pack of Marlboros with the barcode graphics on the current Ferrari F1 livery or not. What we can be sure of is that now a jobsworth has made the allegation we all think of a pack of Marlboros every time we see the Ferrari livery.
Which will not have harmed Philip Morris (makers of Marlboro) one dot and really has done Ferrari no harm at all. They have been adamant that despite allegedly receiving sponsorship approaching $1 billion in the last decade from Philip Morris they have not tried to circumvent tobacco advertising laws in Europe by using a dodgy graphic on their cars and overalls.
But having let the Marlboro-Gate allegations rumble on for a week they’ve decided to draw a line under things for Barcelona. In a very brief press statement they said:
Together with Philip Morris International we have decided to modify the livery of our cars starting with the Barcelona Grand Prix.
This decision was taken in order to remove all speculation concerning the so-called “bar code” which was never intended to be a reference to a tobacco brand.
By this we want to put an end to this ridiculous story and concentrate on more important things than on such groundless allegations.
Lot of fuss about nothing. Really.
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