The car sported a striking wavy polka-dot design in papaya orange and ocean blue on each side and the front wings. But its most prominent feature was the logo for the e-cigarette brand Vuse splashed across the design.
In November 2023, Formula One (F1) team McLaren revealed their newly branded racing car, featuring a paint job by the Saudi Arabian artist Nujood Al-Otaibi ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that month.
For the past three years, artists such as Al-Otaibi, who has a hearing problem, showed their work through British American Tobaccos (BAT) Driven by Change initiative. By partnering with McLaren and Driven by Diversity , they want to make motorsports accessible to everyone, they say.
The catch is that their designs are used to promote a BAT product in this case its e-cigarette brand Vuse. Putting a bright spin on tobacco even for non-traditional products such as vapes is an old industry trick.
E-cigarettes (aka vapes) are electronic devices that heat a nicotine-containing liquid to produce a vapour that the user inhales. Nicotine, which comes from tobacco leaves , is the drug that gets you hooked on tobacco products such as cigarettes and cigars, which is why experts warn that vaping could entice non-smokers to start using tobacco .
This is bad news for peoples health, because research has convincingly shown that the chemicals people inhale when smoking cigarettes help to cause cancer, lung problems and heart disease.
As a member of the World Health Organisations (WHOs) anti-smoking treaty since 2005 , South Africa promised to make laws that will clamp down on advertising of tobacco products to stop people from picking up the habit.
Because e-cigarettes could push someone to start smoking, the minister of finance has placed a sin tax on vapes similar to the tax on tobacco products, and the planned new bill proposes that vape advertising should be controlled in the same way as tobacco advertising.
In 2021, 12.7 million South Africans used tobacco , with just over 11 million of them getting their fix from smoking. The habit cost the country R42 billion in lost productivity and healthcare expenses already back in 2016, with treatment for smoking-related illnesses such as cancer, heart problems and lung disease accounting for about 4% of what the country spent on healthcare that year, an analysis shows . Moreover, close to 26 000 people are thought to have died from smoking that year close to 40% of deaths from Aids at the time.
But the planned Tobacco Products and Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems Control Bill has been sitting in limbo on politicians desks for the past five years , and the current Tobacco Products and Control Act only prohibits some types of marketing, but not all.
For example, smoking and tobacco products shown in international broadcasts are allowed and the tobacco industry may sponsor an activity or event as long as it isnt used to drive up sales. In contrast, film material produced locally may not show any smoking and it cant be advertised in magazines or newspapers, on billboards or on TV or radio.
While lawmakers are dawdling to decide on the new bIll, tobacco companies like BAT and Philip Morris International (PMI) have found ways to get around the proposed stricter rules on vapes not only in South Africa but elsewhere too by tapping into F1s fan base to punt their products.
Sponsoring F1
In 2022, 1.5 billion people around the world watched F1 races on TV and with 24 races (the most in F1s history) in 21 countries on this years calendar, the world viewership is likely to grow. Phil Chamberlain, deputy director of Tobacco Tactics , an information hub thats part of the Tobacco Research Control Group at the University of Bath, says this expansion means the tobacco industry will also have greater access to people in these regions. This can be good news for Big Tobacco, which is facing a dwindling consumer base because of stricter tobacco control measures about 110 million fewer people used tobacco in 2022 than in 2000, a new WHO report shows.
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