BAT and McLaren in Formula 1, a fan experience used to promote nicotine pouches

On September 9, 2025, British American Tobacco announced, through the promotion of its VELO brand of nicotine pouches, a campaign " Live Your Fandom » offering nine superfans privileged access to the McLaren Technology Centre and exclusive moments with team management and driver Lando Norris. Behind the event activation is a strategy of association with Formula 1 intended to strengthen the appeal of a controversial nicotine product, at a time when several European countries – including France – are tightening the framework on nicotine pouches.

F1: the fan experience at the service of VELO

With "Live Your Fandom," VELO is offering nine "superfans" behind-the-scenes access to the McLaren Technology Centre, conversations with team executives Zak Brown, and a surprise Q&A session with Lando Norris. This social media-friendly, hands-on experience transforms a passion for F1 into a driver of nicotine brand loyalty by leveraging exclusivity, performance, and fandom. The campaign builds on similar Grand Prix activations already conducted by VELO (VIP days, premium hospitality), demonstrating a strategy of repeated "experiences" that anchor the brand in the F1 psyche beyond the track. This approach is in line with the tobacco industry's long-standing tactics, which have always sought to associate their products with rewarding worlds such as sport and culture. Contrary to institutional messages from manufacturers claiming an evolution in their practices, these initiatives demonstrate the permanence of classic marketing methods aimed at attracting new audiences and normalizing addictive products.

This positioning is part of a partnership initiated in 2019 between British American Tobacco and McLaren, officially focused on "new potentially reduced-risk products" and the "A Better Tomorrow" program, which became a main partner in 2020. In practice, BAT's visibility has been extended on and off the car, with instances of "VELO" branding depending on the country, and a proliferation of cultural and digital activations. This "brand stretching" - from the corporate banner to "tobacco-free" nicotine brands - exploits the gray areas left by tobacco advertising bans, while claiming formal compliance with local rules. Public health organizations have also highlighted these circumventions, and complaints have been filed in certain countries such as the Netherlands for violation of existing legislation.

Beyond the McLaren-BAT case alone, several analyses highlight that F1's "fan-first" strategy—rejuvenating audiences and multi-platform content—creates an alignment of interests with nicotine players who are seeking "premium" image relays compatible with restricted advertising frameworks. The risk of normalization among young audiences, via immersive and participatory formats, is regularly documented by public health stakeholders, who call for increased vigilance on sponsorships, activations, and promotional stories linked to international competitions in order to exclude all manufacturers of these new nicotine products.

Young audiences: a gap between image strategy and marketing practices

The association of a nicotine brand with a very popular sporting discipline in fact exposes young audiences, strongly present on the platforms where these campaigns are deployed (short videos, "behind the scenes" content, gaming, e-sports, influence). Even when age verification systems are announced, the brand's distinctive signs (logo, colors, hashtags, fan experience stories) circulate widely via shares, excerpts, and media replays. This porosity of digital environments makes segmentation by age ineffective in practice.

In terms of influence mechanisms, these activations exploit powerful vectors of normalization: promotion through performance and speed, support for products promoted by reference figures (pilots, managers), community and rarity effects (VIP access, competitions), relationships with talents and content creators. All of this contributes to increasing perceived appeal, reducing the perception of risks and trivializing the use of nicotine products, in contradiction with prevention objectives.

The bans on all forms of advertising and sponsorship constitute protective prohibitions designed to protect against the attractive effect of these commercial practices. The tobacco company's choice to intervene in sports sponsorship to promote its nicotine pouch brand is once again part of a long tradition intended to associate its product with performance and to minimize its toxic effects.

In the Netherlands[1], a complaint was filed against the VELO/McLaren display during Formula 1, alleging in particular a visual misappropriation of the logo through the anagram LOVE, perceived as a strategy to circumvent the advertising ban and increase appeal to young audiences. This example illustrates the need to ban all sports sponsorships by tobacco and nicotine manufacturers, and to strictly ensure the application of existing bans in all their variations (logos, graphic variants, "fan" operations and digital content). In France, the regulations go further: they prohibit not only sponsorship of tobacco and vaping products, but also any sponsorship from the manufacturers themselves, regardless of the product concerned.

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[1] Tobacco-free generation, Netherlands: Complaint filed against McLaren for advertising VELO nicotine pouches during Formula 1 championship, published August 23, 2023, accessed September 10, 2025