I did not go to Brixworth at the end of last week to see the Mercedes engine facility and talk about 2014 engines, on the basis that it would have cost a fair bit and been another day away from home, and because most of the British press corps were there and so everyone would end up writing the same thing – which is what happened. Instead I stayed home in France and I am off this week to Italy for the annual Wrooom event, which gives a much smaller group of UK reporters the chance to catch up with the Ferrari folk, with the Ducati riders thrown in as well, in the convivial atmosphere of the ski resort of Madonna di Campiglio, 5095ft above sea level in the scenic Dolomiti di Brenta mountains, in the Italian Alps.
The event is organised by Philip Morris and the Trentino province in order to promote the region and the two major teams funded by the tobacco company, which owns Marlboro, and continues to be involved in the sport, despite the many and various laws which restrict tobacco advertising around the world.
This will be the 23rd year of Wrooom and it is now an established part of the F1 season for those lucky enough to be invited, with a week of public and private events, press conferences and entertainments, in addition to skiing for those who wish to do wrooom down the slopes. It may sound like a lot of fun (which it is), but it is a very busy programme and one seems to spend most of the time whizzing from one event to another. It also involves large amounts of Italian food and wine, and also the fun of watching the F1 drivers racing against the MotoGP stars in karts on the frozen lake in the middle of the village. There are torchlight ski runs on a couple of nights, which are spectacular and look like fun – if you don’t getting wax all over yourself!
Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa will be flying in from Brazil, where they spent the weekend playing about in karts (not very successfully) and they will be joined by MotoGP riders Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso, with the riders of the Pramac Ducati satellite team – Andrea Iannone and Ben Spies – joining the fun as well.
joeblogsf1 
Hi Joe, you don’t often seem to publish my comments for whatever reason, but I was wondering – what’s your take on the rights and wrongs of tobacco advertising and Marlboro’s continued investment in Ferrari and Ducati?
I publish almost everything, unless it is obnoxious, rude, features bad language or is libellous. I occasionally block the IPs of people who deserve to be banned (my blog, my rules), in which case I no longer see anything they write. However, as you are here, I probably haven’t done that.
My view about tobacco advertising is that if one is allowed to sell a product one should be allowed to advertise it. The argument that tobacco is bad for your health is no more valid than the arguments that alcohol, cars or even fast food are bad for you. All of them mean that public money is spent because people end up in hospital as a result of them. Governments have shocking double standards because not only do they tax tobacco to absurd levels, but some of them give farmers money to grow tobacco. Ludicrous. I believe that we have a right to choose our own poisons and that we are grown up enough to make such decisions. I know that free will is a concept that is out of fashion, but people can choose whether they smoke or not, just as they can choose if they gamble and so on.
” I believe that we have a right to choose our own poisons and that we are grown up enough to make such decisions”
So what is your stance with companies who actively promote smoking to young children in 3rd world countries to get them hooked at an early age?
Doesn’t Ronald McDonald do the same, hoping that everyone gets fat on their burgers and fries.
If so, does that make it OK?
Aside from two wrongs not making a right, the situations are totally different.
Yes, McDonalds opens restaurants in poorer areas where food education is likely lower, and has happy-clappy advertising which is appealing to children, but it’s still the parents in the majority of cases who make the purchases – albeit under some pressure from the little darlings.
Some of the huge multi-national cigarette companies, however, take cynical ruthless marketing to a whole new level, organising parties and events in 3rd world countries where there’s little or no education, and getting children with single-figure ages hooked on their product.
If you want to educate yourself a little more, a good starting point is Duncan Bannatyne’s 2008 documentary, freely available online.
Frankly I’m glad to see the back of cigarette marketing, it’s just a shame that some companies seem as addicted to their advertising dollars as their customers are to their products. It would be political suicide for any government to ban the sale of tobacco, but fortunately (in the westernised world at least) sales are declining.
It’s just a shame that cynical greedy companies look to the 3rd world to hook a new generation of customers, and a tragedy that big companies that should know better still wish to be associated with that trade.
I spent 20 years following the tobacco industry very closely.
Maybe you’ve even done work for the tobacco industry?
No. Wrong again.
And what’s your stance on companies like Nestlé, who sell baby formula at ridiculously over inflated prices to malnourished mothers in 3rd world countries?
I do not agree with exploitation of anyone. However, Nestlé is not a charity organisation, as far as I am aware, and there is no international body that is allowed to dictate what something is worth so that is left to the market. I am sure that Nestlé does not like the kind of publicity that it has about this subject and perhaps things have changed since the 1970s when it all happened. Perhaps not. I do not know.
No, it hasn’t changed. And yes, there is an international body which is allowed to “dictate” on these matters, it’s called the World Health Assembly and publishes an international code of breast milk marketing which Nestle’s critics claim it ignores.
Shame, I quite like a Kit-Kat.
If it is ignored it has no power. If it has no power it is just a quango.
I remember your stance on this before joe and still quite shocked by it. Whilst people are enjoying their poison, others are suffering from passive smoking and stench. Regardless of other issues, fast food and alcohol, it does not make the promotion of this right
I did not say I was in favour of passive smoking. We are all allowed to have opinions. I am appalled by some as well.
Maybe the promotion of fast cars (like Ferrari’s and AMG Mercedes) that are undoubtedly driven on public roads should be put to a stop as well?
The story this is attached to makes this question fairly null, no?
Are you suggesting that Madonna di Campiglio has something that Northampton does not? Shame on you…
Lots of ‘i’s?
Lovely, snowy mountains, in Northampton? 😉
Sounds interesting, watch out for the roads, we are just having our first decent snow of the winter today. Have fun!
I agree Joe. Banning cig advertising without banning sale (then taxing them) is a strange situation. To think that a slogan on a rear wing will make people take up smoking is to belittle what actaully causes it (peer pressure when young).
I would be very interested to see how Philip Morris think they get good results from involvement in F1, despite no visible presence on cars or circuits in most markets?
Until recently, the Ferrari *did* look like a packet of Marlboros.
Did anyone ever confirm what the barcode actually said?
Lucky you! I just came back from Davos before all the fuss starts over there. It was certainly scenic, but as much as the Italian Dolomites!
Am looking forward to see some pictures here..
Hi Joe,
One of many amazing contradictions about Ferrari is Philip Morris’s continued backing of them despite the ban on tobacco advertising. How is it that precious Ferrari can maintain this funding source when tobacco companies have been hounded out of all other sporting endeavours?
As an Autocar reader, I’m delighted to see that you’ll be doing their motorsport page from now on. Good luck in your new work.
“How is it that precious Ferrari can maintain this funding source when tobacco companies have been hounded out of all other sporting endeavours?”
I don’t think anyone is stopping tobacco firms sponsoring teams. It’s just advertising tobacco is not allowed, so I’m guessing most tobacco firms no longer see the point of sponsorship for minimal brand exposure.
I think to someone coming new to the sport this year, they’d be hard pressed to know Ferrari are sponsored by Philip Morris, Marlboro isn’t in the team name any more, nor is the Marlboro logo present on the cars.
The only peculiarity that used to exist (I’m not sure it does any longer, now the Marlboro logo is gone) was when teams visited countries outside the EU with no such ban on advertising tobacco, the logos were all over the cars and it confused me as to the legality of showing that on the telly (no doubt it was legal, but the odd report by a presumably confused journalist would surface every now and again, questioning it).
Related: Joe, Wikipedia is unclear, and states only that Ferrari extended the deal with Philip Morris to 2011.
Am I right in saying Philip Morris owned all the sponsorship space on the car, and essentially sublet it out? I could have sworn I read that somewhere, or I might have got the wrapped round my neck….
The latest deal runs to the end of 2015. At a certain period Philip Morris used to buy the whole car and then sell sponsorship on to others. In recent years, I believe, this has changed and some of the sponsorships are now done directly by Ferrari. That would seem to suggest that the value of the deal did not keep up with inflation and Ferrari took some of it in-house, but that is purely speculation on my part.
Ahhh thanks Joe for clearing that up! Your speculation is usually correct and that seems pretty sound to me! Enjoy your week.
I think the difference is that tobacco/cigarette ADVERTISING is banned (my personal opinions of which Joe addresses, above, better than I) but that doesn’t have anything to do with funding. As far as I remember, the most recent move again PM/Marlboro’s advertising was the removal of the “bar-code”-like image on both Ferraris and Ducatis.
Hi Joe…Regards from de Dom. Rep., first off all…I’m with you when this “free will” issue rises on the tobacco ban in sports discussions. I think you’re off to a great week whit the Wroom event…Good luck, I don’t know if you’re a smoker, but at least (while in the Wroom) you will stay away from fast foods joints in the way much of us would like to…Regards and hope to hear what you have for us after the event….Take Care…
I hope you have a great time! Could you let us know a good place to see pics of it all after you get back?
Joe, please ask when Adrian Newey’s joining!
HAHAHAHAHA……Nice try!
I hope he is never tempted to join them !
Never say never, but I’d guess it’ll be at about the same time as Beelzebub takes up snowboarding.
😉
Or Joe gets a Xmas card from Flavio?
sound like a fun couple of days worth of work. This event always signals to me the begging of the season, I can’t wait to see the new cars already!
A week of Italian food and wine in the Alps. It’s a rough job, but, someone has to do it. You are applauded for taking up the mantle.
Hah ! Taking one for the team Eh, Joe, what a trooper 😉
Being selfish here, I do say that I would have liked you to go to the Mercedes engine day as I would have loved to see your comments of it all, the normal press corps roll out fluffy stories after fluffy stories and I think we all come back here to enjoy your unique, sensible, behind-the-scenes take on things! So I personally was quite sad to hear that you didn’t go! 😦
Re the tobacco issue , was there not a bit of a scandal a few years back involving tobacco corp supply to smuggler types in Italy?? But I agree with your take on the issue Joe , If Govt collect tax then product should be permitted to advertise . The present situation is corrupt thus people lose respect for so called authority!
I wonder if Alonso will arrive armed with another seemingly casual comment directed at Dr Helmut, Sebbo, Webbo, and Newey?
Joe, enjoy the hospitality. From memory I don’t recall Ferraris being adorned by “noxious weed” stickers when Enzo was alive – although I recall most of his drivers’ wages were paid by PM from about 1972 onwards. A bit ironic that Ferrari now the last team to be openly sponsored by tobacco, don’t you think?
From a purely personal point of view (and leaving the arguments about tobacco sponsorship to one side for the moment) what really irritated me was the subtle change in colour from the traditional Ferrari red (a deeper red) to the lighter tones of a Marlboro cigarette packet – although I believe it has been modified a little since. But an greater change was when Lotus adopted the Gold Leaf brand in the 1968 and dispensed with the traditional British Racing Green livery (I still have the sew-on embroidered patch given away by them at the Brands Hatch Race Champions 1968! Great videos of both races at Brands that year on You Tube). Anyway, such is progress…..
“It also involves large amounts of Italian food and wine, and also the fun of watching the F1 drivers racing against the MotoGP stars in karts on the frozen lake in the middle of the village. ”
That does sound awesome- I’d even wear Ferrari gear (Big Mclaren fan) and suck down some Marlboros to be allowed in.
On a big tangent – any thoughts/insights on the Fanvision news Joe?
I found those things quite useful, especially if the superscreen in your area was hard to see.