A video by The Chemical Brothers, complete with a dog behind the wheel, highlights F1’s work with the music group.formula one
Formula One is pouring more money into marketing this year as owner Liberty Media continues to increase its investment in the sport.
The global open-wheel series, which started its 2019 season last weekend in Australia, has been working in recent years to build out its overall corporate structure. F1 effectively had no marketing department under the former regime of Bernie Ecclestone, who ran the series almost unilaterally from the late 1970s until 2017. The series is now trying to grow its presence digitally and socially as well as in key markets around the world, including the U.S. and Asia.
To that end, Ellie Norman, F1’s director of marketing and communications, said the series’ leadership group — a triumvirate of Chase Carey, Sean Bratches and Ross Brawn — have signed off on increasing her budget this year as they ramp up initiatives that include promoting F1’s OTT product, improving TV production and holding more live fan festivals. She did not disclose the size of either the budget or the increase to it.
Norman said F1’s marketing and communications group has grown to 20 people. “From the three of them, there’s a real recognition in terms of the power of marketing,” said Norman, who joined F1 in mid-2017, shortly after Liberty bought the series. “I have had an increase in my budget [for this year] — and within the marketplace, that isn’t necessarily common, so that is a great indication to have that.”
Given how little was being done by F1 in terms of marketing, sponsorship, analytics and digital media before Liberty came aboard, the American media company has spent the last couple of years hiring and putting a new structure in place. Norman said now that Liberty has been doing that for two years, “2019 is 100 percent about how we really drive the sort of focus with the foundations in place.”
Near the top of her to-do list is growing F1 TV, the OTT product that had a challenging debut in 2018 but has been refined and appears ready for a better second season. Norman said F1 experimented with marketing around the product on social media and with search engines last year and will broaden that this year, using video to explain why the service is different than a usual linear TV broadcast. For example, F1 TV Pro, which is produced in six languages across 65 countries, has exclusive camera views and data channels, which are features that F1 will highlight in its marketing.
The series also is expanding on its “Engineered Insanity” marketing campaign that it debuted last year by homing in on sound this year. F1 worked with English electronic music group The Chemical Brothers to remix and speed up one of its songs to a three-second sound that will be the series’ new sonic identity.
In terms of the U.S., Norman said the series is eyeing new media partnerships and continuing to grow its influencer marketing platform, which last year saw celebrities such as Will Smith and Millie Bobby Brown show up to races and produce content for the series. F1 last year produced a fictional viral video during the season finale weekend in Abu Dhabi where Smith kidnapped Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton.
The series, which is working on adding a second U.S. race in Miami or Las Vegas as soon as 2020, will hold two new fan festivals this year in Chicago and Los Angeles.
F1 also is working on improving its TV production. For example, Norman said its engineering team created a microphone that can be placed in the exhaust system of an F1 car, giving viewers a more visceral engine sound. In addition, F1 is experimenting with 360-degree on-car cameras and using drones to help cover fan festivals.
Other areas of focus include growing the series’ relatively limited corporate partnership portfolio and its presence in esports.
“It’s been the most rewarding experience of my career to date — one of the things I have thoroughly loved and appreciated is essentially coming into a 69-year-old startup,” Norman said. “The ability to come into a business and essentially have a blank piece of paper but with some really clear objectives of what we have to achieve has been phenomenal and a challenge I’ve really relished.”
