TalkSPORT Secures Niquitin For Grand Prix Sponsorship
National speech-based radio station, talkSPORT, has secured the Niquitin CQ to sponsor its extensive Grand Prix coverage.
Niquitin CQ is also sponsoring the BMW Williams Formula One team, in a unique turn-around for the sport, which has been traditionally supported by tobacco companies such as Marlborough (see UK Tobacco Ad Ban Passed By Parliament).
The sponsorship comes as European Union regulations finally move to put an end to tobacco sponsorship of the sport in the near future.
Commenting on the deal, Matt Wilson, sponsorship and promotions executive at talkSPORT’s sales house, Impact, said: “With the long period of tobacco brand funding of Formula One coming to an end, the NiQuitin CQ sponsorship of the BMW Williams team is symbolic expression of this paradigm shift.”
Janine Edwards, senior planner at MediaCom, added: “The talkSPORT sponsorship has enabled us to reach a whole new segment of consumers and given us an additional starting block to cement the relationship between Formula One and NiQuitin CQ.”
Legislation to ban tobacco advertising in Britain passed through the House of Commons late last year, 40 years after the Royal College of Physicians published conclusive evidence linking smoking with lung cancer (see UK Tobacco Ad Ban Passed By Parliament).
The ban will have a huge impact on Formula One, which has gained the bulk of its sponsorship from tobacco brands. Controversially the sport has been given until 2006 to find non-tobacco sponsors.
The latest RAJAR figures for the six months ending June 2003 saw talkSPORT’s weekly reach drop by 10% year on year to 2,160,000,down from 2,401,000 in the same period in 2002.
talkSPORT: 020 7959 7800 www.talksport.co.uk
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