During a tournament in Australia in February 2012, Chaini and Kamla Pasand – leading manufacturers of chewing tobacco – targeted Indian television viewers with advertising for their products on the boundary rope and around the cricket ground. Tobacco advertising is prohibited under Australian law, but the promoter had provided translations to Cricket Australia claiming that the advertisements were for mouth fresheners. Complaints from concerned Hindi-reading viewers were taken up by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Australia.
The Union South-East Asia Office and The Union Department of Tobacco Control stepped in to support ASH in its advocacy efforts. Their combined actions resulted in intense media coverage of the issue, an investigation of Cricket Australia by the Australian Department of Health and the removal of the advertisements from the cricket grounds.
When similar advertisements appeared at cricket grounds in South Africa for the India-South Africa series in April-May and more recently in Sri-Lanka for a series in July, The Union and partners in both countries again took action, and the advertisements were removed.
Even though most countries have legislation banning the direct and indirect promotion of tobacco, enforcement is often lax, creating an opening for the underhanded promotion of tobacco products. Brand stretching, at play here, is a practice by which the branding associated with such a product is retained in advertisements of another product (such as a mouth freshener) from the same manufacturers. Often, the surrogate is produced and distributed in extremely limited quantities to ensure that the advert effectively promotes the tobacco product among its audiences. Such techniques present a unique set of legal and technical challenges for tobacco control, so it is critical for organisations to collaborate and pool expertise and experience in tackling these industry strategies.
The T20 World Cup began on 18 September in Sri Lanka, and chewing tobacco manufacturers are expected to be among the sponsors. Continued collaboration will continue to be key to enforcing for tobacco control legislation.