Cigarette Advertising In Sport (Yesteryear)

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Funny to think this was my work car back in 1994 and changed so quickly after that with normal cars then being purchased as cigarette advertising was banned.

Back in the 1990's I worked for a cigarette company as a promotional brand manager which was very different to what is allowed today. Virtually every sport back then had some type of tobacco advertising and only started to slowly disappear from around 1994. I can still remember the Rothmans July in 1994 with us only being allowed to use posters as long as they had the Government warning signs visible. The ones that stated smoking could be harmful to ones health blah blah blah.

The company I worked for was so big it was split into two as they controlled over 95% of the market share. This ensured a healthy competition and rivalry between the two companies and a total domination of sporting events throughout the country.

I was reminded of the work we did by @wolfgangsport's post about sport and the various sponsors involved. When the governments around the world started pulling the plug on tobacco and sport advertising you wondered how these sports were now going to survive and in many cases they still received our payments even though we had no real benefits. The advertising budget still had to be spent as these were tax write offs so the money still made it's way into sporting hands.

Every brand had it's own niche or sport they were tied to and luckily the brand I was involved with covered al sports within the Police, Defence Force, Universities and Technical Colleges. Rugby and cricket weeks were my favorite and you got to see all the new talent that was breaking through before they made their names internationally.

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The brand I was in charge of was called Chesterfield and we had Pontiac Bonneville's and Camaro Z28's to ride around in. There weren't many American cars on the road and being left hand drive always caught peoples attention due to the branding.

The office I worked in had multiple brands and due to so many sporting events being used for promotional work we had a code of conduct. No other branded vehicle could attend or be seen nearby any event they were not involved in.

We had Rolls Royce's for Dunhill which included chauffer's dressed up in top hat and tails including white gloves. The poor guy who was the promotional ambassador for this brand had to wear suits everywhere he went. If you wanted to go to the beach at the weekend you had to check into a hotel first and dress down that way all covered by expenses. Dunhill had a superior image they portrayed and were involved with equestrian show jumping and golf.

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Gunston was a local brand that did surfing events along with track racing and drove Ford Cosworth V8's. Rothmans which was one of the more well known international brands did horse racing along with rally car racing and had Audi Quattro's. Winfield was an Australian cigarette which sponsored Rugby (Super 12) and had BMW's.

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I used to drive my Camaro to rugby matches I was involved in and there were some complaints but were thrown out as I was at least playing. I didn't want to move to Winfield as they were a hokey Pokey brand in South Africa with a relatively small budget.

We even had a brand called John Rolfe that sponsored surf lifesaving and had branded helicopters, jet ski's and rubber ducks. Imagine your work day involving having to either fly around or do some hours taking a rubber duck out on the water. This was a job but had more fun elements than working if we were honest with ourselves. The budgets made it that no corners were ever cut and if something was required it was just purchased.

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There were a handful of other brands that had American cars as well like Mustangs and Bronco's. If anyone needed a spare part American Car Sales who was our dealer would send one of his technicians to the States to fetch the part and fly back with it on the plane as hand luggage. They eventually got wise and didn't see it as a treat as the only bit of America they got to see was the inside of the airport.

Lives were so different back then especially in the cigarette world and sports and new how lucky I had been to be part of this when I arrived in the UK. They had no branded cars and no one was involved in sport besides the Formula One with Marlboro (Ferrari and McLaren) and Rothmans (Williams) and the University boat race. The promotional events were mainly around London with umbrella drives and using promotional girls so very much low key to what I had been doing.