THE official sponsorship logo for this year's Hong Kong Salem Open tennis tournament has been redesigned in a move anti-smoking campaigners claim exposes a loophole in new tobacco advertising laws.
The green and pink Salem cigarette logo will continue to appear as in previous years, but paired with the logo of mineral water producer Perrier.
The October event's organiser, Spectrum, insists the new-look logo has nothing to do with the law, but is the result of greater sponsorship participation by the French drinks giant.
Lincoln Venancio, Spectrum's chief executive said: 'It is a very big event for which we have been working well with a good number of sponsors. And Perrier, as a co-sponsor for the fifth year, would like to have more exposure from this year on.' Marcus Yu Yin-sum, executive director of the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health, claims Salem is trying to take advantage of the law's wording.
The Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance says an advertisement or object that includes the trade name identified with a tobacco product 'in association with any product not being tobacco' and which does not mention words such as 'cigarette', 'smoking', 'cigar' or 'pipe' is not deemed a tobacco advertisement.
The new logo resembles the old one, to which a comparatively small official logo of the mineral water brand has been added underneath with the phrase 'in association with' placed between them.