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Vegas Vroom: F1 Grand Prix 2023
The most talked about race this year was the F1 Grand Prix Las Vegas 2023 which happened in Sin City for the first time after 40 years. This event was a monumental undertaking, executed by the city with all the world’s glitz and glamour — Vegas style! There was a lot of criticism surrounding the event. But everyone agreed the actual race was indeed nail-biting. The reason I’m eager to discuss this event is that, much like any other sport, it represents the ideal blend of advertising, technology, and entertainment, except it was elevated to the next level — Vegas style. Multiple consumer and business brands used the opportunity to talk about their products. Branding in the F1 gives a lot of opportunity for brands to tell a story but when it happens in Vegas, the available advertising real estate takes the creativity to the next level.
When Liberty Media acquired F1 in 2017, it took over an iconic sport that was strapped for cash and fans. They wanted to build an entertainment brand and bring it back to success. This sports brand moved from no marketing members to a dedicated marketing division. The strategy then maps out of a typical marketing playbook.
Know your audience
Liberty Media researched its fan base and the immediate findings were to expand focus on the younger population and give something for the fans to experience and engage with the brand.
That led to the social strategy
This meant not only having a social handle and creating content to bring younger fans closer to the brand, but it also meant relaxing the age-old restrictions that F1 had on sharing original content by teams and external actors on social. This led to F1 being the fastest-growing sport in the first three years of the new management.
Broadcasting
Apart from negotiating broadcasting rights with local sports channels, Formula One Group launched their own streaming platform: F1 TV — with the same goal of bringing fans closer to the races and making them feel special with access to exclusive content.
Entering America
Liberty Media being an American company wanted to expand the race in North America. F1 has historically struggled in the US due to competition from local sports and a lack of leading drivers. However, they decided to invest in this with some strategic moves — social media, and Netflix docuseries “Drive to Survive” were all steps taken to get closer to American fans and build awareness of Formula 1. This year Las Vegas Grand Prix, was the first race where Formula One group invested xxx to execute the race. It also brings now 3 races hosted in the US — Miami, Austin, and Vegas.
Gathering Data
They partnered with AWS to accumulate as many statistics and numbers as possible about drivers’ performance. This not only helped the drivers improve performance but fed into F1 TV — attracting more fans to the premium fan-exclusive channel.
Brand success in numbers
By the end of 2022, Formula 1 is had reached one billion spectators and 77% of these were under 35 years of age. In the US, it is even the sport with the youngest average fans (32 years old, compared to 42 for NFL). The brand has over 21 million followers on Instagram, 10 million on Facebook, and over 8 million on YouTube and Twitter. Finally, perhaps the most significant fact: the group’s shares have increased by 250% since 2016.
After 40 years Formula 1 group invested in Vegas to conduct the race. This is very different from the traditional model. Traditionally if Dubai wants to host an F1 race, it will pay F1 to bring the race to their country. In a call with Wall Street analysts, Liberty Media’s CFO said that they had spent $435 million in buying the land, building the track, paddock, and facilities, but it is tipped to hit half a billion as costs continue to spiral. While they are considering it as a future investment and are not overly worried about the expenses — it was a different business model.
Brands flocked to advertise at this star-studded event. Sponsorships from corporate America in motorsports have been going on for long. These days sponsorships need to work a lot harder than building awareness. They need to meet the objectives of the brand and create engaging and authentic experiences that go beyond a brand sticking a logo on a car. And creating brand experiences with Formula 1 allowed brands to be creative in their storytelling and connect with customers and fans.
There was lots of criticism from locals while getting prepped for the Grand Prix. The practice race also saw some difficulties and fans were asked 9 minutes in the race that finally ended with a class-action lawsuit. The time zone was odd for global viewership and it was one of the coldest races this season. But keeping all that aside the final race proved to be thrilling — very similar to street-style racing. And just as expected, the fans just couldn’t get enough. Formula One Group this year effectively leased the Sphere, both internally and externally. The race was around the Sphere. Liberty Media-owned all the advertising on the Sphere for the duration of the race for a fixed fee.
Ok, this is the reason why I am writing the blog. I was awestruck by the creativity on Sphere during the race weekend. The sphere is redefining ad creativity and redefining OOH displays. Brands had the opportunity to build great experiences both digitally and complement them with live experiences. While many brands pulled their A-game during the race — the following are the ones that I loved learning about.
Companies paid an estimated base fee of $450,000 per day or $650,000 per week to get the ball sparkling. While the price point is steep, the arena promises undoubtedly visibility, with an estimated 4.7 million daily impressions on a single day, 300,000 of which are offline impressions, with 4.4 million coming from social media. In addition to the glam and glitz of unique experiences, this is the only track where the fans are so close. Las Vegas Grand Prix was a pivotal step in making Formula 1, the ultimate sports and entertainment event of the year. Only the race at Monaco comes close to the extravaganza of Vegas.
Aston Martin
Advertising with F1 helps them generate direct sales worth $2 billion in sports cars annually.
This is an encouraging story for every marketer, where Aston Martin was able to convert marketing spend to direct revenue. The activation of Sphere required months of hard work from their content and design teams. It also focused on launching 3 brand-new cars in 90 sec. This is one of the first immersive automotive marketing experiences. There is an interesting podcast at the Joe Pomp show where Aston Martin’s global head of marketing and Communications Renato Bisignani discussed their marketing strategy and why F1 attributes to direct sales.
Mercedes Benz
Mercedes Benz sphere advert was simple and bright and definitely did not miss the attention.
Heineken
As the title sponsor Heineken had premium opportunity both in the F1 paddock and at the OOH displays. They turned the massive orb into a disco ball. They also had 3D billboards featuring a model dropping handbags to grab the drink across the strip and at the airports.
T-Mobile
The exclusive wireless provider for the event, T-Mobile, has a stage and lounge set up at the Sphere featuring bars, free charging, and giveaways. Apart from ensuring seamless fan experience across multiple platforms during the race, T-Mobile also ensured fans engaged with their magenta brand off the track too. T-Mobile’s partnership with the Las Vegas Grand Prix included activating at the race’s opening ceremony, the T-Mobile Zone at the Sphere and the Club Magenta fan space within, and at a nearby T-Mobile retail store on the Las Vegas Strip. Ticket holders enjoyed performances at the T-Mobile Stage in the T-Mobile Zone at Sphere, and T-Mobile customers had access to the “Club Magenta” lounge with private bars, free device charging, daily giveaways, and views of the action.
Google used the Sphere activation to demonstrate speed interestingly pairing it with McLaren cars as their racing partners.
Despite all the troubles of building the infrastructure, Vegas and Formula One are here to stay given the massive investments. The total local economic benefit of the grand prix, this year is expected to reach over $1.7 billion, which includes the direct spend from F1, the incremental spend by visitors, and the impact of local suppliers and businesses. The race is expected to employ more than 7,700 people with around $361 million in salaries and wages tied to those jobs. This includes employment beyond just the race, including construction roles and roles within the partnered experiences. The 40,000 hospitality worker union was also able to negotiate higher wages because of the larger-than-life events which Vegas always continues to be the favorite home to.
There were many other brands espescially tech brands like Cognizant, Oracle, ServiceNow, Salesforce that strategically marketed at the motorsports arena and it demands a separate blog to highlight their work and the strategic partnerships that brought the brand story to life.
