Inside Formula E’s influencer marketing strategy

Ellie Norman is a big believer in the power of the individual.

There was plenty of evidence of that during her four years as global director of marketing and communications at Formula One, where she was one of the first key executive hires after Liberty Media officially took over the series in 2017.

When Norman arrived, Formula One was well established as the world’s leading motorsport series but had invested little in fan engagement. So Norman set out to reimagine the championship as a modern, accessible entertainment property, leaning heavily into social and digital platforms to humanise the drivers and use their stories to bring new fans into the sport.

By the time she departed in 2022, following a stint which included overseeing Formula One’s first major rebrand in 23 years, Norman had laid the groundwork that has enabled Formula One to both grow and diversify its fanbase around the world.

Now, she is looking to achieve similar success at Formula E, which she joined as chief marketing officer in October 2024 after a brief spell heading up communications for Premier League giants Manchester United. While the marketing channels available to Norman and her team are different now to 2017, she says that the fundamental principles of growing the sport’s audience remain the same.

“My mantra and ethos has always been that people buy people,” Norman tells BlackBook Motorsport. “That very much was a catalyst for how do we open up the [Formula One] paddock, start to tell more of the stories around the drivers themselves, their journeys into the sport, the highs and the lows, the rivalries.

“Now, I think that is as true for Formula E as it is for other sports. Today, so many new fans come to a sport through the athlete or the driver, and so the similarity and the opportunity is to have the driver share more about their journeys, their personalities, what interests them outside of racing, or how they’ve got to where they are. And I think by doing that, it really grows the interest and the appeal and the stickiness of the league itself.

“So I would say that’s relevant for us today in Formula E, and it was certainly relevant for Formula One when I joined in 2017.”

Sport is just one part of a broader “entertainment diet” for Formula E fans, according to chief marketing officer Ellie Norman (Image credit: Formula E)

An urban, open-minded and progressive fanbase

Convincing fans to follow what remains a relatively new motorsport series presents a different challenge to growing the fanbase of a sports property with the heritage and prestige of Formula One.

When it arrived on the scene in 2014, Formula E was positioned as the poster child for more sustainable sport, offering car manufacturers a platform to show off their electric vehicle technology at tracks in major international cities. That has not only attracted major automotive brands like Nissan, Audi and BMW over the years, but also appealed to sponsors such as DHL, Julius Baer and Google Cloud.

While sustainability remains core to Formula E’s identity, Norman acknowledges that there is now a focus on promoting the high stakes, entertainment and competitiveness that are central to building the series’ credibility as an elite sport.

At the same time, its environmentally friendly roots mean Formula E has naturally appealed to an audience outside what might have historically been considered the core motorsport fanbase. Norman characterises the series’ fans as urban, open-minded and progressive, noting that sport is part of their “entertainment diet” alongside other interests like technology, design, gaming and fashion. She also says that “the core of the fanbase” sits within the millennial and Gen Z demographics.

Formula E’s objective now is to “build our fame”, Norman says. With that in mind, Norman is once again putting her faith in the power of the individual – only this time she is leaning into the creators and micro-influencers who have built huge followings on the platforms where Formula E’s target audience spends time.

The most notable example has been Evo Sessions, where celebrities and creators with a combined following of more than 300 million got behind the wheel for a time trial after documenting their training on their own platforms. Brooklyn Beckham, Sergio Aguero and Emelia Hartford were among those to take part in the event, which later premiered as a documentary on US network CBS.

A later collaboration with MrBeast and a sponsorship deal with his Feastables brand are further evidence of how influencers have become a bigger part of Formula E’s marketing mix. Norman also highlights that the series has retained flexibility in its broadcast arrangements to allow it to co-create with influencers, including around live races.

That has sat alongside a free-to-air media rights strategy, including a deal with ITV in the UK, which Norman says is part of a broader objective of making Formula E “easy to find and easy to buy”.

“[The thinking is] how can we co-create with these micro-influencers and the creators to essentially give them Formula E and allow them to explain and talk about the sport to their own audiences?” says Norman, who was speaking following an on-stage appearance at SportsPro Media Summit in Madrid.

“That’s quite different to tactics that I’ve worked on with my team in the past in other sports, but the alignment with our fanbase and where the growth is coming from is very, very strong.”

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“It really is that flywheel effect”

Formula E is hardly the first rights holder to work with influencers in pursuit of audience growth, but it is perhaps a more natural alignment for a sport that was conceived for the digital age.

And if reach has been the primary objective, then it appears to be paying off. Formula E claims that its global fanbase reached 422 million by the end of season 11, representing a 13 per cent increase from the previous campaign. More pertinently on the digital front, impressions of Formula E content surpassed 1.39 billion in 2025, while video views were up 47 per cent year-on-year, with Evo Sessions accounting for 42 per cent of the total.

However, Formula E currently lacks the lucrative media rights deals of the more established sports, meaning the challenge now is to monetise those audiences who have been introduced to the series via its influencer-led marketing strategy – be it through media, sponsorship or merchandise sales.

To that end, it is no surprise that another objective for Norman and her team over the next 12 months is to “make us hard to leave”. If the series can achieve that, then she is confident the revenue will follow.

“In the long-term, it really is that flywheel effect,” Norman continues. “That’s how we’re really getting all of those cogs to work together with a view of just growing that addressable digital audience.

“In time, that becomes of value, not only to commercial partners, but to our race promoters who are hosting races in their country, and equally your ticketing and merchandising.

“So it’s really taking that long-term view of where will the growth come from, and ensuring it is as sustainable as possible.”