PM questioned over vape sponsorship of sports kit
Addiction Economy thought for today - Predatory Advertising is the second of the 4 Drivers of the Addiction Economy.
Advertising and positive association with aspirational organisations, particularly sports and celebrity endorsement (which this clearly is) really works. That's why companies spend £billions each year doing it. If it didn't they wouldn't spend the money. Obvs.
It creates social legitimacy and normalises products, embeds positive associations and increasing sales through direct association or through adjacent promotions and ancillary advertising.
In response to a question from Kirsten Oswald MP for East Renfrewshire in Scotland about the vape company Totally Wicked sponsoring Blackburn Rovers Football strip, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak responded by saying that "decisions on sponsorship were for teams to make themselves".
Wrong, it is for governments. The government restricts tobacco sponsorship, forgetting that it is not the tobacco, but the nicotine which causes the addiction, and the tobacco which causes the health effects.
Products using highly addictive ingredients, nicotine being the most addictive legally available, should not be allowed to advertise to anyone and should not be allowed to associate their products in any way with health or sporting organisations or role models.
The article below explains that "The English Football Association (FA) guidelines state that no products or services "detrimental to the welfare, health or general interest of young persons". But products which are detrimental to health or general interest of over 18s, particularly the young people who are the main legal target of vapes, are fair game.
The companies will say that football fans will have a high representation of the demographic of smokers, who the government wants to use vapes to quit, so they should be allowed.
All cigarette company and vapes clearly stated corporate plan is to replace cigs with vapes, which sounds sensible as so far they are significantly less harmful than cigs. But research is building that, like cigarettes, the longer the products are on the market the more harms are showing up. Inhaling the many chemical additives in the flavourings (officially approved for ingestion and not inhalation) is bad for your lungs, unsurprisingly given the clear medical understanding of the sensitivity of lung tissue.
All advertising and promotion of any type for vapes should be stopped, with plain packaging of all products and under-the-counter sales enforced alongside cigarettes.
Blackburn Rovers Football Club, you should be ashamed you fell for this, you are being played. Wise up, end the sponsorship.
Here on BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/68942758