Tobacco, alcohol, and gambling brands face strict advertising bans, yet remain highly visible through surrogate products and sponsorships. Legal expert Harrison Jordan reveals the tactics.
What’s happening: Alcohol, tobacco, crypto, and gambling companies face strict or outright advertising bans in many markets. Yet these brands remain highly visible through sponsorships, brand extensions, and carefully crafted campaigns.
Why this matters: Understanding these tactics matters for businesses navigating compliance, regulators closing loopholes, and consumers recognising marketing strategies that operate in legal grey zones while technically avoiding direct product promotion.
Walk into any major sporting event, and you’ll see them: brands that technically can’t advertise. Alcohol logos on Formula 1 cars. Tobacco company names on fashion lines. Crypto platforms sponsoring stadiums. These are calculated strategies that operate within legal grey zones.
Alcohol, tobacco, crypto, gambling, and certain financial products face strict or outright advertising bans in many markets. The regulations exist for good reason: protecting public health, preventing gambling addiction, and shielding consumers from financial risk. Yet these brands remain highly visible, their names embedded in culture through sponsorships, extensions, and carefully crafted campaigns that never technically break the rules.
Harrison Jordan, founder of Substance Law, a Toronto-based firm specialising in legal services for highly regulated industries, has spent years advising companies on dealing with these restrictions. “The advertising bans are clear on paper,” Jordan explains. “But the methods brands use to stay visible have become increasingly sophisticated. Many of them operate in spaces where the law hasn’t caught up yet.”
Below, Jordan examines five major restricted brands and the legal workarounds they use to stay in the public eye.
Music CDs and whisky
India banned direct alcohol advertising in 2000. No TV commercials, no print ads featuring the product itself.
But Imperial Blue found an easy workaround: It doesn’t advertise whisky, it advertises music CDs.
For nearly two decades, the brand has run its “Men Will Be Men” campaign, promoting Imperial Blue Superhits Music CDs through humorous situational ads that never mention alcohol. The company even produced a feature film in 2011, which ensured the brand stayed embedded in popular culture.
“Surrogate advertising exploits a regulatory gap,” Jordan explains. “The law prohibits advertising alcohol, but it doesn’t prohibit advertising a music CD that happens to share the same brand name. As long as the surrogate product exists and meets minimum market presence requirements, the company operates within legal boundaries.”
Fashion meets Formula 1
The US banned cigarette advertising on TV and radio in 1971, and globally, tobacco faces some of the strictest advertising prohibitions. Marlboro pivoted to brand extensions and motorsports sponsorships to remain in the spotlight. The company launched Marlboro Classics clothing, featuring the iconic branding without cigarettes.
In Formula 1, when direct branding became impossible, Ferrari carried “Mission Winnow” or colour schemes that subtly evoked Marlboro’s red-and-white chevron. The brand maintained visibility through loyalty programmes and events without showing a single cigarette.
“Tobacco companies pioneered circumvention strategies,” says Jordan. “They understood that brands with enough equity don’t need to show the product. Marlboro’s colour scheme alone became recognisable enough to advertise without words.”
Sports and crypto platforms
Cryptocurrency platforms face advertising restrictions in dozens of countries. The EU’s MiCA regulations require specific licences, and Google and Meta restrict crypto ads to licensed operators only.
Binance stays visible through its investment in sports sponsorships, including national football teams in Argentina and Brazil, and Formula 1’s Alpine team.
When direct advertising became restricted or suspended in certain markets, Binance shifted to content marketing through Binance Square, where influencers generate brand visibility without traditional ads. The platform created 14 regional entities to navigate jurisdiction-specific regulatory requirements. “Crypto platforms face unique challenges because regulations vary wildly by jurisdiction,” Jordan notes. “Binance operates borderlessly, so when one market closes, they find another entry point. Sports sponsorships provide global visibility even when local advertising is banned.”
Festival partnerships
Alcohol brands face age-restriction requirements across multiple markets. Industry self-regulation and platform policies generally require alcohol advertising to be targeted predominantly at legal-age audiences, with strict limits on under-21 exposure.
Bacardi focuses on partnerships that don’t require traditional advertising. The brand sponsors music festivals through companies like Live Nation, gaining access to customer databases for targeted marketing. Bacardi invests in digital content and experiential activations that create brand awareness without paid ads.
The company self-imposes restrictions by avoiding advertising before lunchtime and steering clear of gambling-related content to stay ahead of regulatory scrutiny. “Alcohol brands create experiences rather than advertisements,” says Jordan. “Sponsor a festival, and you’re building brand association without technically advertising the product.”
Content marketing dominance
Online gambling faces heavy restrictions in most developed markets. Countries typically require licences that Stake does not hold in certain markets, effectively banning direct advertising.
Stake mastered content-based marketing and uses it to stay visible. The company sponsors Formula 1’s Sauber team, ensuring global visibility during races. More notably, Stake partners with streaming platforms and social media content creators who repost viral videos watermarked with Stake’s logo.
When regulators challenge them, Stake geoblocks services from restricted countries while maintaining sponsorships, arguing they’re not providing gambling services in those jurisdictions. “Gambling platforms exploit the disconnect between advertising and service provision,” Jordan explains. “They sponsor teams that race globally, so the logo appears everywhere, but technically, they’re not advertising to restricted markets. It’s clever positioning in regulatory grey zones.”
“The legal line sits exactly where these brands have learned to walk it: between brand visibility and product promotion. Regulations prohibit advertising the product itself, but they often don’t account for brand equity built through adjacent activities. A music CD, a fashion line, a sports sponsorship… all of these aren’t technically advertising alcohol, tobacco, or gambling services.
“Regulators struggle to control this because enforcement requires proving intent, and these companies have structured their activities to appear legitimate. By the time regulators close one loophole, brands have already moved to the next channel. The digital space makes this even harder: content marketing, influencer partnerships, and international sponsorships all create visibility without traditional advertising.
“The challenge is that brands evolve faster than legislation can. Regulations are reactive, while marketing strategies are designed to be three steps ahead.”
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