McLaren announce global partnership with British American Tobacco

McLaren are gearing up for the new F1 season and have been ringing in the sponsors before they step out onto the track in Barcelona for testing.

Their recent sponsorship recruit is the British American Tobacco company, one that is focussed on innovation, a driving force behind the global partnership that has been announced between the two brands.

The deal has been announced at a time when Ferrari and Philip Morris are under investigation by the Australian authorities for the ‘Mission Winnow’ branding on the Ferrari cars.

Tobacco advertising has been abolished by F1 and while the ‘Mission Winnow’ branding doesn’t really promote tobacco in a direct way, the Aussie authorities aren’t comfortable with the entire ‘tobacco links’ that the campaign has.

Now, amidst this controversy, McLaren have gone onto announce a global partnership with a tobacco brand. It will be interesting to see how the advertising and marketing activities are carried out and what kind of branding is provided by McLaren.

“We welcome BAT to the McLaren team and support their ambition of delivering meaningful and lasting change through innovation.” Zak Brown said.

“BAT’s transformation agenda is central to this partnership and we are pleased to share our technical experience and expertise in helping to accelerate this.” he added.

BAT’s chief marketing officer, Kingsley Wheaton has emphasised on ‘innovation and technology’ being the major objective of this partnership.

“We’re extremely proud and excited about this new partnership, further enabling us to accelerate the pace at which we innovate and transform ourselves. It gives us a truly global platform with which to drive greater resonance of our potentially reduced risk products, including our Vype, Vuse and glo brands.” he said

“ Ultimately, innovation and technology will support us in creating a better tomorrow’ for our consumers worldwide.” he added.