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- F1 champion Sebastian Vettel misses the point with Social Media
The motorsport world has gradually started to shake off the festive cobwebs as January continues to get the new calendar year underway with a number of high profile events taking place this week.
- Social Media and London 2012
We submitted a short blog for The UK Sports Network this week with some social media predictions for 2012. Being Olympics year, and with a number of athletes on the Sine Qua Non books, including Zac Purchase and Paralympic athletes Charlotte Henshaw and Ollie Hynd, we looked at how the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the first true social media summer Games.
RT @InsideFerrari: Ferrari and Santander together until 2017 http://t.co/iGjflr3D #F1 #Sponsorship
Interesting to see how #London2012 sponsors use athletes - past and present - in activation and engagement #cisdcampbell
Manufacturer pull-out changes the sponsorship landscape
Business | Sponsorship | Sport | Technology
The last 10 years or so had seen a subtle shift in b2b partnerships in F1, particularly in the technology and automotive components space. Before this, technology companies including HP, Sun, Oracle and Nortel got involved in F1 partnerships either for the mobile branding building exercise and/or for the opportunity to develop and showcase their technology solutions in a fast paced, ultra competitive sporting/business environment. Sun and to a lesser extent HP were examples where the technical showcase was a key driver of the relationship but branding and ‘traditional’ benefits such as hospitality and team access were a very welcome addition. Oracle ventured a couple of times into opportunistic sponsorship of Benetton on a race by race basis purely for the branding and hospitality and while the sponsorship with Williams lasted several years, the motivation at Nortel was very similar.
But with the rise of the manufacturer teams we saw many more relationships develop that certainly had these elements included but that also incorporated a much wider commercial alliance with the parent manufacturer. Dell and Intel as partners on BMW Sauber were prime examples of this. Panasonic Toyota Racing was another team that developed a number of very long term partnerships based on broad business relationships away from the track.
I’m not knocking this kind of relationship, far from it. They are far more creative, beneficial and justifiable than many sponsorship relationships that simply redirect some advertising budget. But the situation is changing. There are now far fewer manufacturer teams on the grid and this means that the F1 and broader motorsport industry needs to get creative again to engage with partners in a meaningful way for their business. F1 shouldn’t just be a consumer marketing platform but it needs innovators to maintain a strong b2b perspective.
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