Ferrari extend contract with Philip Morris until the end of 2015 Formula 1 season
It has been revealed that Formula 1 team Ferrari have extended their contract with Philip Morris, a tobacco company until the end of 2015.
“Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro announces that it has extended its collaboration agreement with Philip Morris International to the end of 2015,” read a press release.
Ferrari are one of the most backed teams of the sport in terms of sponsors as their budget in 2010 was around 119 million Euros which is quite less than their budget from 2009 which was around 209 million Euros.
Each Formula 1 team contains various types of sponsors which include trade link-ups, co-sponsors and title sponsors. The title sponsor is the main sponsor of each team like Ferrari’s major sponsor from 1997-2007 was Marlboro and it was included in their
name. Similarly, McLaren’s title sponsor these days is Vodafone which is also included in the team’s official name.
Marlboro, which is a brand of Philip Morris, has been Ferrari’s main sponsor since 1997 until advertising cigarettes was banned in Formula 1 back in 2007. Marlboro is reported to sponsor Ferrari for about $1 billion during its 10-year deal from 1997 to 2007
and now it has been revealed that the team has decided to extend its contract with them for another 4 years.
Ferrari were accused of ‘subliminal advertising’ for running a livery with a barcode which was quite similar to Marlboro’s branding. The team denied this accusation but removed the branding replacing it with a simple Scuderia Ferrari logo in order to avoid
any sort of confusion.
Other than that, in some parts of the world, Marlboro does advertise Ferrari on its cigarette packaging with references and images of their Formula 1 car.
However, if Marlboro advertises Ferrari on its packaging, then the organisers of the sport can do nothing about it. Even if Marlboro sponsors Ferrari, that is not against the rules of the sport as it is clearly mentioned that ‘advertising’ a tobacco company
is forbidden which means that there is no rule against sponsorship.
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