ATP removes official name of Davidoff Swiss Indoors from website!
Sunday, 06 June 2010 21:25
A few weeks ago, we noticed that ATP, the Association of Tennis Professionals, had discreetly removed the Davidoff Swiss Indoors official logo from their website, replacing it with a non-registered logo from which the word "Davidoff" had been obliterated. ATP has now gone one step further and has removed the official name of the Basel tournament from its website, calling the tournament the Swiss Indoors, while the registered name is Davidoff Swiss Indoors! The picture below gives an extract of the current ATP webpage dedicated to the Basel tournament. By moving the cursor over the image, you will see how this extract looked at the beginning of 2010. You will note that all mentions of the brandname Davidoff have been carefully deleted in the more recent version.
Extract from ATP website, page on Basel tournament
The Basel tournament is the only one of the ATP tour whose official name is not used on the ATP website. The ATP must feel very embarrassed by the fact that one of its tournaments promotes tobacco products, notably to the youth. Actually, the global tennis association must recognize that they are even in an illegal situation. Indeed, ATP, as owner of the broadcasting rights for the Davidoff Swiss Indoors outside Switzerland, violates the law in many countries, including European law, when they make arrangement with TV channels for the satellite broadcasting of the Davidoff Swiss Indoors. This unlawful practice must also come to an end, and soon, otherwise ATP will run the risk of being subjected to a flurry of legal actions.
By selling the soul of their tournament to tobacco dealers, the organizers of the Basel tournament are the ones to be blamed for mess in which ATP finds itself with the Davidoff Swiss Indoors. This is really a sad state of affairs and a shame for the city of Basel and for Swiss sport in general!
Maximum pleasure
The title sponsor of the Davidoff Swiss Indoors presents itself on the website of the tournament with the following prose:
Isn't this beautifully said? The merchants of Davideath do not only stretch their brand, they also stretch their advertising rhetoric beyond irony and antiphrasis, exploring new territories of human gullibity: "The Good Life" - a trademark officially registered in the tobacco category - is their "open Sesame" to profitability from selling a deadly product to those influenceable enough to buy this kind of B.S. Just in the same way they are selling Gauloises (another Imperial Tobacco brand), a product that traps people in addiction, under the slogan "Freedom forever."
However, reality has a strong tendency to strike back, often at the moment least expected.
When you see Davidoff The Good Life, Davideath The Ugly Death may not be far away. Actually, it just takes a pack of Davidoff Gold cigarettes sold in Switzerland to have that experience. The back side of the pack offers an extraordinary juxtaposition where reality does hit hard indeed. But at least, Zino Davidoff being quoted saying that "these carefully selected tobaccos have been skillfully blended to assure your pleasure" does not run the risk of being contradicted by the corpse of the former smoker in the morgue!
Are the Swiss Indoors doomed?
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Would it be that the Davidoff Swiss Indoors giant, in spite of its superb arrogance, is a vulnerable Achilles, and that a few determined public health advocates can easily provoke his downfall? Let us say right away that, if there are no Davidoff Swiss Indoors in 2010, it will not be the fault of a "bunch of anti-smoking activists" - an easy scapegoat for those who do not want to face their responsibilities. It will be because Mr. Breenwald has opted for the ostrich policy, ignoring that the world around Basel has changed since 1994. |
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