{"id":437,"date":"2019-04-16T14:07:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T14:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=437"},"modified":"2023-12-08T12:25:56","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T12:25:56","slug":"is-formula-one-out-of-gear-with-vaping-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.electrictobacconist.co.uk\/blog\/is-formula-one-out-of-gear-with-vaping-ads","title":{"rendered":"Is Formula One Out of Gear with Vaping Ads?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"F1<\/h3>\n

Big Tobacco is revving up for more e-cigarette sales by advertising on F1 cars \u2014 but will the marketing tactic sell?<\/span><\/i><\/h3>\n

Cigarette giant British American Tobacco (BAT) is back in the superfast world of Formula One racing and has plastered vaping ads all over British partner McLaren’s cars as they race all around the world and attempt to win this year’s championship. It marks the return of the billion-pound tobacco company to the global motorsport extravaganza after tobacco ads were banned from Formula One in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

BAT’s ads made their debut on McLaren’s new livery during the first race of the year, at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne in March, promoting the company’s popular <\/span>Vype<\/strong><\/span><\/a> e-cigarette in several prominent spots on the orange-and-blue car, including on the futuristic front wing, flank and the back of the rear-view side mirrors. This places the brand before a global audience of <\/span>more than 1.7 billion people<\/strong><\/span><\/a> around the world who tune in to TV or online to watch the hyper-designed vehicles tear around tracks at 21 Grands Prix, concluding in December in Abu Dhabi. <\/span><\/p>\n

But some are asking questions about BAT’s return to Formula One with its vape brand, wondering if it’s the right vehicle for advertising e-cigarettes and if it might pose something of an unfair advantage to other, far smaller vaping companies that don’t have the extraordinarily deep pockets of BAT. Will Formula One fans who vape using other gear be tempted to switch to Vype, for instance, and could this mean that BAT will gain the upper hand in the vaping market just because it\u2019s able to spend vast sums on motorsport advertising? Could it, in fact, lead to an unhealthy dominance in the fast-growing vaping market and lead to losses, and even closures, of small vape firms, and ultimately be bad for e-cigarette users who are used to the best e-cig for themselves and might not want to change?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Vaping
Vaping Pit Stop: A Vype-emblazoned McLaren car is attended to during testing for the 2019 Formula One season. (Photo: McClaren Racing)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All Change for Big Tobacco<\/b><\/h2>\n

Global tobacco companies may no longer be able to advertise their cigarette products in many markets of the world \u2014 the exception being developing regions such as in Southeast Asia <\/span>where cigarette ads are still allowed<\/a><\/strong>, though, strangely, vaping <\/span>has been banned in some places<\/strong><\/span><\/a> \u2014 but, increasingly, they can promote their vaping gear. And it comes at a time when Big Tobacco is realising that its cigarette market is drying up, in the Western world at least, as more smokers than ever turn to vaping gear to get off cigarettes and become healthier. <\/span><\/p>\n

Much of the sea change in smoking is due to the results of research in recent years into vaping and its effects on the human body, as health authorities seek to discover what, if any, are the harms to health that e-cigarettes pose compared to combustible cigarettes. Public Health England and the NHS are leading the vaping charge. The former carried out in-depth research into vaping to find out if it’s hazardous to human health and concluded that it’s <\/span>almost completely harmless<\/strong><\/span><\/a> compared to lighting up cigarettes. That’s because there’s no tobacco burned \u2014 only heated vaping liquid that contains a flavour and nicotine, and sometimes no nicotine at all, just the fruity and other flavours \u2014 and so there are none of the many thousands of toxic chemicals given off, dozens of which we now know lead to cancers and other diseases in the human body. For its part, the NHS has been backing e-cigarettes for over two years now as part of its annual Stoptober stop-smoking campaign, in which it <\/span>says<\/strong><\/span><\/a> smokers who vape instead of smoking have one of the highest chances of quitting cigarettes, and for good.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"BAT
BAT Out of Hell? Vaping products developed by British American Tobacco.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are now <\/span>around 3.2 million vapers<\/a><\/strong> in the UK, many of whom are former smokers and have managed to stay off cigarettes by vaping. Meanwhile, the number of smokers in England continues to decline, and in recent years the figure has fallen to a record low \u2014 smoking rates are <\/span>down by nearly a quarter<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in the last five years and now there are around 6.1 million adults who regularly smoke in the country. All this has set alarm bells ringing in the corporate headquarters of large tobacco companies, and their management has been reacting to the shift by developing vape gear of their own. Philip Morris has even gone so far as to say, at the start of last year, that it\u2019s <\/span>hoping to get out of the cigarette business<\/a><\/strong> altogether in the UK (and sell vapes instead).<\/span><\/p>\n

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