So far as I can tell, the background to the Government’s
extraordinary about-turn last week over tobacco and Formula One is based
on two premises: one, 50,000 British jobs are at stake and, in a global
business like motor racing, they could easily move abroad. Two, there
are no other advertisers that could be found to replace the tobacco
companies.
I know nothing about motor racing, but I do know something about
advertising.
It seems there is a lie at the heart of the affair that needs to be
nailed - that there ain’t no life beyond tobacco money, something the
poster industry knows to be untrue. As anybody who works in advertising
also knows, it is increasingly a global game too, and it’s rather
surprising that Labour didn’t ask any of its good friends at BMP DDB for
their views.
It’s therefore difficult to believe that the clever people behind motor
racing are not capable of persuading the likes of Coca-Cola, Pepsi,
Procter & Gamble, BT, Citibank or Unilever to join in. If that’s too
ambitious, they should just concentrate on a few global industries such
as leisurewear, telecommunications, computers and banking. In the jargon
of sponsorship, these are ’tomorrow’s’ industries so they should grab a
piece of the action to associate themselves with a ’tomorrow’ sport like
motor racing.
After all, it’s not as if global sport has no pulling power. Look no
further than the sort of multinationals that sponsor the World Cup and
the Olympics - Budweiser, Canon, Coca-Cola, Fuji Film, Gillette, JVC,
MasterCard, McDonald’s, General Motors, Philips and Mars - global
advertisers every one of them. And motor racing happens every year, not
one in four!
Beyond that, several other arguments seem to be in force. One is that
only tobacco companies and fools (ie those who are easily parted from
their money) are prepared to pay the huge sums involved in Formula
One.
Because they have nowhere else to go, it is said that Formula One can
squeeze 50 per cent more out of a tobacco sponsor and price others out
of the market.
But I digress. The official reason sponsorship costs so much is that TV
coverage brings with it huge global audiences. Here again the arguments
are false. Apart from the fact that most of this ’tobacco premium’ seems
to go into paying Damon Hill pounds 15 million a year, it takes no
account of digital and ’virtual’ TV advertising technology, the effect
of which is to reduce associated media costs by breaking the global
market down into smaller pieces. The result? Audience wastage is
eliminated and national advertisers can join in.
One suspects that last week’s decision has caused no end of excitement
at the tobacco manufacturers. If they can prove 100,000 jobs will be
lost from the ban on conventional tobacco advertising, they’re in with a
shout.
Except that this is difficult to prove because, as we all know, tobacco
advertising doesn’t affect consumption.
