Disclaimer: The comments and observations discussed in this article are those of the individual panellists, and not of the moderator’s and ERacingMag’s. And none of the brands or products mentioned are endorsed by any participants.
Q1: Despite global appeal of both sports, F1 drivers still lag behind footballers in terms of brand exposure & Twitter followers; how can F1 raise its profile? And if you were the current 2014 F1 World Champion and "most marketable athlete"1 Lewis Hamilton, what would you do after winning 2nd WDC to capitalise on this marketability?
Rebecca Zeitlin (RZ): “One of the biggest problems with F1 is that despite its very technically advanced nature, it is really slow. Football (soccer) is really dynamic for many reasons, such as social media adoption, naming rights on stadia and sponsor-names on race kits. And they (soccer teams/promoters) are willing to change their system anytime they need to change, whereas Formula 1 has been using the same sponsorship system since forever. Football is reengaging every day. For example, the Capital 1 Cup, when Chelsea played Spurs. The match was at Wembley, which has a big arch.
The league ran a Twitter battle #OwnTheArch to decide which teams' colours the arch would be. (Spurs won the battle) That is so easy to implement, yet Formula 1 can’t do that so it has a long way to go to be compared with football in that regard.
On the topic of Lewis, what he should do and what he is going to do are two different things. But it looks like he will go into music; though if I managed him, I would
direct him away from that firmly. However, I would advise him to take a leaf from the books of many other athletes who have been in the middle stage of the careers. I would check out options in the 2 – 5 year range, so perhaps that means developing a clothing line and even better, partner with an existing fashion house like a line within a line. Maybe doing something like David Beckham did with H & M2 with a long term strategic partnership. The other thing that is always an option is to become a pundit; though to do that he would need to start media training now to prepare for when his career ends. So that would be my advice for Lewis. Unfortunately he probably won’t take this route”
Deepali Ramaiah (DR): “Similarly to what Rebecca said, I don't see there being any unified focused message of the sport by the FIA and FOM. That is a huge danger for them because there are about a hundred broadcasters all over the world - each with a regional focus & messaging of what the sport is and I feel that’s a failure on their part to take over the reins.
It’s unfortunate that the nature of the sport is such that with regulations and technology changes, F1 missed the opportunity to make this clear to the fans – so there was a lot of confusion early on. They need to decide on the sport’s message and develop a marketing campaign around that. It is not that hard. I’m sure they have a lot of data for that.
Moderator: Those are valid points but what about driver recognition as opposed to recognition and promotion of the sport. Why is (Cristiano) Ronaldo better known globally than Lewis Hamilton, for instance? Is it purely due to F1's exclusivity?
Deepali Ramaiah (DR): “Partial blame is with the teams as well in terms of how much exposure they provide for their drivers. For example I saw an advert with Barcelona FC on Qatar Airways3, where all the football players are traveling all over the world. This promotes the players and the team. We don't see that happening in Formula One so they are missing an opportunity to develop campaigns with or without their sponsors, and not just on TV but other forms of media.
Generally, F1is still slow to adopt regardless of what we see with Facebook and Twitter.” Bridget Schuil (BS): “I think F1 is missing out on massive opportunities in social media. Other panellists have alluded to this but basically F1 does not promote itself effectively. They could be doing a lot more on YouTube and other social networks such as Tumblr and Pinterest. The Formula 1 community there is large and close-knit, and it is easy to get into Tumblr as a space.
Formula 1, because it rejects the younger generation4, is missing out by ignoring the technological needs of (call it) 40% of the fandom. Don’t forget, The Football Association (FA) Cup is broadcast in every country whereas F1 in this part of the world (Zimbabwe) is satellite only so it’s a middle class, white sport, to be blunt. If they were really keen to bring new talent in and raise the brand’s profile, they could make some TV deals that excited people outside the UK or USA.I know we are in the back end of nowhere but they are motor sports fans here!”
Danielle Crespo (DC): “I'm going to approach this from my perspective which may be a bit narrow but could offer some insights. Being in Austin for many years, when F1 was announced here, Austin made no sense for Formula 1 in terms of demographics. Manhattan, Long Beach or Miami where F1 already have some grass-roots support made more sense. Since the announcement, the Circuit of Americas (Austin race track/promoter) was really in start-up mode but we had very little information about Formula 1 itself.
My friends and I were extremely frustrated because (it felt like) we were doing the work for them for free! We hosted watch-parties and other events to get the word out but once people in our group stopped attending or missed one watch-party, the whole thing fizzled. If it weren't for the brands Red Bull and Shell with their convenient stores and promotions and limited advertising by the circuit in the first year, you didn't really know there was a race on - except for some limited media stirred up about how expensive the circuit, how bad the infrastructure would be, and media rumours about a sheikh blocking off streets to land his helicopter!
The most frustrating thing was that apart from whatever was happening within the confines of the circuit, we didn't really see an impact of Formula 1 itself outside the circuit. There was little promotion downtown. Anyone who knows anything about Austin knows we are a festival city. All you had to do was make a free outdoor festival in advance of the race to educate people, give away few tickets etc. The main problem with the F1 locally is struggling to appeal to the grassroots fans - these are the people who aren’t buying Rolexes but are future F1 fans, they invest in social media and team-wear. They are not already die-hard fans so even if their favourite driver goes to another team, they might support both teams so that’s more eyeballs on sponsors’ logos.
From my perspective, F1 needs to really embrace the younger generation, widen their scope and not just focus on the Rolex subset.”
DR: “I went to the very first Austin race and it's interesting to hear Danielle’s points. As a fan, I sought out F1 events going on around in Austin e.g. Will Buxton’s Bash and Derek and Conor Daly’s event. My experience was impacted by teams reaching out to me; Shell and Pirelli invited me to the paddock multiple times so for me, it was a completely different experience.
There were some events downtown, like 6th Street and other areas where cordoned off but other parts of the city, promotion was non-existent. I have friends who live in Austin that did not know there was an event going on!” DC: “As someone who was arriving in the city during that week, it was well done. They had a Fan Fest, they blocked off some streets, had concerts and the event itself was very well done. However, it felt like F1 came in, landed and took off again but I don't know about retention rate for people who weren’t fans before or the residual effect in the city”