As was the case with every sport, it is no secret that Formula One felt the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Following a rapid increase in global cases in March, including several within the paddock, the motorsport series had no choice in the week of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix but to pack up and go home until it became safe to travel.
Ellie Norman, Formula One’s director of marketing and communications, tells the BlackBook how the series had to adapt and innovate to engage fans both during the hiatus and when racing resumed in July. The most notable way in which it was able to connect with fans was through the Virtual Grand Prix series, where a selection of drivers and sports stars raced from their homes.
“The success was phenomenal,” says Norman, who adds that the esports series generated “over 30 million views”.
The Virtual Grands Prix allowed fans to connect and engage with the series’ stars on a more personal level – helmets off and in their own homes. This was, according to Norman, something that fans were very receptive to and hugely enjoyed.
“What that gave us was the ability to bring together and really blend where we’re seeing people spend time,” Norman adds. “So first and foremost digitally and being able to cross and bring those passion points together through gaming, music, and obviously Formula One drivers and other sports stars.”
When Formula One was able to start racing again in July, the series was under pressure to innovate further as most circuits did not allow fans or commercial partners to attend, with teams only operating a skeleton crew. Norman explains that it was imperative for the series to be mindful of the Covid-19 risk and strictly adhere to health and safety protocols to enable racing to take place.
“When we did come back to racing on track, we were obviously operating in a very different way,” Norman notes. “We had red zones, amber zones and green zones, and that was very much a protocol and procedure we had in place to mitigate the risk of Covid. We just had to behave differently and work within those constraints.”
Norman is a big believer that constraints and limitations can create the environment for people to innovate, and that’s what Formula One did. For example, the well-known Paddock Club, the series’ hospitality offering, became a virtual experience in 2020. This allowed Formula One to take fans to never-before-seen places, such as former world champion Mika Hakkinen's home and garage. It is unlikely that fans would have been exposed to such experiences if the switch to a remote offering had not been necessary.
Formula One's hospitality, the Paddock Club, had to make the switch to virtual in 2020.
“Despite having limited trackside fan attendance, we were able to implement a number of different initiatives to really engage and keep fans coming back to the sport for more,” says Norman.
It is no secret that attracting younger fans continues to be an important target for Formula One, which has embraced new and emerging technologies in the years since its 2017 takeover by series owner Liberty Media. Some of the strategies which Formula One has been implementing to grow its younger fanbase more recently include the ‘We Race as One’ programme, the use of social media platform TikTok, increased video content, utilising influencers and STEM programmes.
So far, according to Norman, the success of those initiatives is clear. Since 2017, Formula One has successfully grown its younger audience, with 40 per cent of its fans now under the age of 35.
“[Targeting younger fans is] very much continuing to position us as relevant within society and essentially going to market and providing accessibility for the sport to engage with a younger audience,” Norman adds. “It’s something we need to keep developing and growing upon, and some of those strategies, plans and tactics that we are putting in place builds on what we’ve been doing.”
‘We Race as One’ is Formula One’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) platform, and Norman says it is “vitally important” for the series to “recognise the power that [it has] as a brand”, but also “to unite hundreds of millions” and to “draw attention to and highlight the values [that Formula One] cares deeply about.” Indeed, focusing on sustainability, community, diversity and inclusion reflects the series’ drive to represent the concerns and passions of its broad fanbase.
TikTok, Norman explains, has allowed Formula One to be more fun and adopt a relatable tone of voice to connect with younger audiences. The series uses the short-form video platform to create narratives and tell stories in a unique and different way, which is a welcome breath of fresh air from previous leadership. That approach is consistent across all of the series’ social media platforms and is clearly resonating with a wide range of fans.
Norman says: “What we have seen is the continued growth of our Formula One social channels, but very importantly the highest engagement rates out of other major global sports demonstrates the content that we’ve been creating is doing what it should be doing by continuing to grow, but having that highest engagement.”
Ellie Norman has overseen a modernisation of Formula One's digital marketing
Norman is also keen to reiterate Formula One’s commitment to using video to connect with younger fans in 2021 and beyond.
“Video, [it] goes without saying, is absolutely the medium we are getting the most traction from, so it's about having the right content in the right places at the right time,” she explains.
Elsewhere, Formula One is continuing to run its popular esports series and plans to further implement gaming to make it more accessible to fans. Norman also references the popularity of ‘F1 Tracks’, a new music initiative through which the series has collaborated with a number of artists to create personalised driver playlists. Norman says the move is giving fans “greater insight and access into who our drivers are off the track as well as on”, something that is clearly a goal for the series to drive engagement.
That aim is perhaps most apparent in ‘Drive to Survive’, Netflix’s popular Formula One behind-the-scenes series, which Norman says has “been one of the most powerful marketing tools” for the sport. Now in its third season, the docuseries allows viewers to witness and hear stories that very few people get to see unfold within the paddock, enabling fans to build a closer connection and better understanding of Formula One.
Re-live a season like no other.#DriveToSurvive Season 3.
Now streaming, only on @netflix. pic.twitter.com/IHAdlK1cKZ
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 19, 2021
“The last time I was at the Austin Grand Prix in 2019, just hearing the amount of people in and around Austin who had travelled there specifically for the Grand Prix because they had seen Drive to Survive,” Norman recalls.
Beyond connecting with existing fans, Drive to Survive has also helped the series engage with a whole new group of people, too.
“It’s definitely contextual storytelling that’s added to the sport,” Norman says. “Collectively between Formula One and the teams we’ve all done a brilliant job of coming together and amplifying that and that’s obviously contributed to setting lots of standards to best year-on-year growth on social media and digital channels compared to any benchmark peers.”
Always keen to grow its global audience, Formula One is constantly looking to strengthen relationships and make connections with new markets. The series already has one race in the US, but in recent years has made no secret of its desire to potentially bring a second Grand Prix to the country.
“The US is hugely important to us and we’ve communicated that pretty consistently over the last couple of years,” Norman says.
Currently dominated by domestic series such as Nascar and IndyCar, the US holds huge potential for Formula One. According to Norman, the series has been able to connect with a much younger audience in the country, with 46 per cent of fans there aged 35 and under. There are, however, challenges with retaining that engagement. Scheduling of Formula One sessions aligns itself strongly with Europe, traditionally home to one of the series’ largest fanbases. That means that fans in the US are waking up incredibly early to watch sessions and races in comparison with European fans, who tend to watch in the afternoons, Norman noted. The onus will therefore be on Formula One to create a package that is appealing and easy to watch for fans in different time zones across the world.
Meanwhile, the greater Gulf Region is also a significant target for the series. Formula One will race in Saudi Arabia for the first time in December 2021, which will enable the series to connect and engage with fans in the kingdom in unique ways. “When we look at the fanbase, it’s a very young population and young fanbase there,” Norman adds, “so digital, social, esports and Drive to Survive play particularly well in engaging with an audience there.”
For a series that has run for over 70 years, Formula One now has its finger firmly on the pulse and is constantly exploring and innovating as it heads into its 23-race 2021 season, which gets underway in Bahrain on 28th March. Responding to the growth of esports, embracing digital to remain relevant with fans and taking advantage of Netflix’s huge consumer base to reach new audiences are just some of the ways that Formula One is ensuring that it leads the way for motorsport off the track as well as on it.
Main image courtesy of Formula One.