Ferrari rear wing, Circuit de Catalunya, 2019

Ferrari to remove Mission Winnow logos again

2019 Canadian Grand Prix

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Ferrari will remove the Mission Winnow logos from its car at the next two rounds of the world championship.

The campaign run by tobacco producer Philip Morris International was previously removed from their cars at the season-opening race in Australia. The team has now confirmed they will also disappear at the Canadian Grand Prix and French Grand Prix.

PMI has denied any link between Mission Winnow and its tobacco products. However critics allege the branding is being used to circumvent restrictions on advertising tobacco.

McLaren has also run the logos of British American Tobacco this season, though not in Australia. Both teams’ cars will appear without their tobacco sponsors’ logos in the new edition of the official Formula 1 game, F1 2019.

As in Melbourne, Ferrari will display logos marking its 90th anniversary.

“Scuderia Ferrari will once again be celebrating the 90th anniversary of its foundation, over the weekends of the Canadian and French Grands Prix,” the team announced.

“Therefore, as was already the case in Australia, the SF90s in Montreal and Le Castellet will carry the logo celebrating the anniversary, as will the drivers and mechanics overalls.”

Ferrari also removed Mission Winnow from its official team name at the first race of the season. The team pointed out “Mission Winnow remains the title partner for Scuderia Ferrari in 2019.”

In March the World Health Organisation called on Formula 1 to ban sponsorship by tobacco producers.

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Why Ferrari has removed Mission Winnow from its F1 car

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2019 F1 season

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Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Albert Park, 2019
Ferrari’s car ran without Mission Winnow logos in Australia

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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34 comments on “Ferrari to remove Mission Winnow logos again”

  1. Effort spent on something so pointless. Sort of sums up their season – all the focus on the wrong things.

    1. You are correct in that it will probably be pointless if they start to win NOW.

      I’ll see myself out

    2. “Effort spent on something so pointless. Sort of sums up their season – all the focus on the wrong things.”

      Yes i’m sure the aerodynamicists or even the engine team will have to give up hours upon hours of work on the car to peel off some decals and stick new ones on.

    3. FIA, hurry up and ban “nicotine sponsorship” instead of “tobacco sponsorship” and this whole circus ends. Very Simple.

  2. “PMI has denied any link between Mission Winnow and its tobacco products. However critics allege the branding is being used to circumvent restrictions on advertising tobacco.”

    Bit of a naïve question… does PMI advertise tobacco and Mission Winnow anywhere? If some random individual just sees the phrase “mission winnow” on a car, are they going to go “hey… I saw that slogan on a cigarette ad”?

    Or is the whole controversy about subliminal advertising, Masonic eyes and pyramids hidden in everyday sight?

    If it’s the latter, the media attention to this whole issue might just end up resulting in the Streisand effect.

    1. Indeed, smart strategy by creating free press through removing and reinstating the Wishing Minnow decals.

      1. @coldfly
        That’s one way to look at it.
        I must say I find this site’s obsession with the logo a bit bizarre. In fact, if it weren’t for the (ir)regular “What’s the Mission Winnow logo up to today?” series (2019/07/21: Mission Winnow logo spotted on Phuket beach; PMI denies any link between Ferrari red and skin cancer), I wouldn’t have noticed the on-off game at all.
        Heck, I wouldn’t even have noticed its presence on the car …

    2. I honestly can’t help but admire it. They followed the exact letter of the law as far as i can tell, and all we’re doing is sitting around talking about tobacco.

    3. “Bit of a naïve question… does PMI advertise tobacco and Mission Winnow anywhere?”

      Yup, in places where you are allowed to advertise tobacco products. Can’t speak for Mission Winnow, but when I used to live in the Middle East I would regularly see Ferrari F1 cars in Marlboro (a PMI product) ads.

      1. @geemac – pardon my lack of clarity, I was wondering if any Marlboro ad used the phrase “Mission Winnow” anywhere, to actually link it.

        1. @phylyp, Marlboro have been very careful to state that the “Mission Winnow” slogan is not being used to promote tobacco products per se, but instead that it is being used as a way of “articulating”, as they put it, the way that the company itself wants to be seen.

          They cannot associate that slogan too closely with tobacco products, otherwise they run the risk of falling foul of the current bans on tobacco advertising – it’s therefore about associating the slogan with the company itself, rather than specific products, in a way that just stays within the law.

          1. Thank you, anon

        2. @phylyp – And yet, speaking as a former Marlboro smoker (a long time ago), one would have to be devoid of sensory perception and critical thinking ability to not see the Marlboro “M” on every one of the 28 placements plastered on the Ferrari F1 car. This is not accidental or benign.

          PMI is not new to subliminal product placement practices or any other device to influence and entice current, former and potential users of their lethal products.

    4. Ducatis are using PMI branding money on their factory bikes.

    5. It already has. I would not have associated the logo with PMI until I read about it in this newspaper. Now i know that it’s an attempt by PMI to general “goodwill” for its broader branding purposes and corporate image. I’m not sure we have to ban it or that it would make sense though. PMI has widely diversified now and we can say they cannot pitch spray cheese or whatever one of their acquired subs makes.

  3. Have they ever won a race after this farce started? I can’t remember if they already had Mission Winnow when Kimi won last year (Austin IIRC).

    1. Yeah they did; it was the 2nd race with those logos, which were introduced in Suzuka 2018 two weeks before @m-bagattini – would have been a good statistic otherwise!

  4. I keep reading Mission Winnow as in winnowing the wheat from the chaff. Something Ferrari seems to find difficult to do. Perhaps it’s a sponsor’s hint to do it NOW?

    1. More like winnowing the floor from the car, using a Pirelli as a thresher ;-)

  5. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    28th May 2019, 13:07

    They are removing it again? Did they realise it’s ridiculous yet?

  6. No one cares if it is on the car or not!
    It is just annoying. Get rid of it, nobody will notice except those denying it has to do with tobacco advertising.

    Why would PMI give millions to Ferrari? Of course they are just a charity!

    Instead, the next deadly sin to be the source of sponsorship is now gambling.

  7. Stop giving them free publicity and advertising. This is exactly what the tobacco companies want. The news articles actually give them more exposure than the stickers on the cars. I know its a slow news week, but why do their work for them?

    They already made billions on the fact that tobacco advertising was banned. Its the best thing that ever happened to them. Instead of paying those huge advertising budgets every year to outspend the competition, now it goes all to the bottom line.

    1. I have to admit I agree here, cars go through subtle sponsorship changes week in week out and it’s usually relegated to a tweet or a byline in another article. Nobody cared about this story the first time and even less now.

    2. @vjanik +1
      This is exactly what I came in to say.
      The fact that they get a mention every time they remove/replace the logo is pure gold to the advertising team.

      1. The Dolphins
        28th May 2019, 17:40

        RaceFans.net might get a buck for every mention of Mission Winnow on their site :)

        1. Or a few clams for every mention of Fishin’ Minnows.

  8. That’s a shame, I prefer the Mission Winnow branding to the 90years one.

  9. Remove those useless strategists !

  10. Good to see the cigarette teams doing badly this year.

  11. If MissionWinnow is not tobacco advertising, then why are Ferrari removing all 28 instances of the Marlboro-PMI-Philip Morris-MW-MissionWinnow-missionwinnow.com logos and slogans plastered all over their F1 car?

    Twenty-Eight separate places this sponsor is cleverly placed for all to see on the ferrari Formula 1 race car. Can’t find any other team that has this many logos of a single sponsor on their cars. Why is that?

    Not to mention the countless more strategically placed all over their drivers, crew, equipment, garages and everything Ferrari at most races that are also being removed.

    Is it because tobacco advertising is outlawed in certain countries, but not others. But wait, isn’t tobacco advertising outlawed in F1?

  12. I can’t help but think that “Winnow” is an endangered fish species that Ferrari wants to protect.

  13. Well.. they weren’t winning anyway…

  14. Electroball76
    29th May 2019, 13:27

    Mission Top6 might be a more realistic target now.

  15. It’s false advertising they aren’t winning anything now….

Comments are closed.