Cigarette Branding Loophole Closed Forever

F1 engineers have been exploiting loopholes in regulations to make their cars faster since the sport began. So, it's no surprise that Ferrari has applied that same strategic thinking to promotions. Marlboro has been Ferrari's title sponsor since 1997. The official team name is Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. In 2002 the FIA, F1's governing body, banned cigarette advertising on F1 cars. Ever since, the Scuderia has been referencing, eluding to, and hinting at a Marlboro logo, without showing the logo. In May of this year the FIA finally said enough is enough and forced all references to Marlboro be removed permanently. While these outlines, stripes and barcodes are not a registered trademark of Marlboro, they certainly mean Marlboro.

To celebrate SFM's success at tricking the FIA for nearly eight years, I have collected as many iterations of these logos I could find online. Please send me more if I have missed any. A contemporary artist in LA has been wheat pasting a parody of the Marlboro logo all over town. Thought it made sense to include it here too. To see more work by this artist click here. To read the full story of SFM's battle with the FIA click here.