Brand Formula: An F1 Marketing Podcast

We are Brand Formula: An F1 Marketing Podcast. Mordecai and Elyssa are back for episode sixteen and it's a sweet one. Belgium delivered red bullets out of the gate, a stewards decision that had even George saying it was wrong, and Isack Hadjar going from twenty-first to sixth on strategy alone. We are in our reformed Max haters era and the tow lap did not hurt.We open on George. His brand has always been the safe one. The rule book reader. The politician of the paddock. So watching him come off the rails in public over the last few weekends is a genuine brand crisis in slow motion. We get into what it means when a manufactured persona starts to crack, why Toto is now one of the most interesting comms case studies in sport, and what it looks like when even a leader as skilled as him struggles to navigate a driver that's going against the team brand from inside the garage.Then the main topic. B2C is quietly arriving on the F1 grid and we want to talk about it. We use the Whoop x Ferrari partnership as our entry point. A consumer wearable carved out of a sea of enterprise tech sponsors, sitting on Charles Leclerc's race suit, We get into why these partnerships and how exclusive tech contracts are quietly blocking entire new revenue categories, and why teams negotiating those agreements need to think harder about where technology is going before they sign away the category.We also have words about Nespresso. The same George Clooney ad. Every commercial break. To a live captive audience of people who actually understand coffee culture inside a sport where drivers drink espresso before they get in the car. We have notes. And Mordecai has a pitch for Lavazza involving Alessandro, the man who pushes Charles's car out of the garage with the energy of someone who has never once considered not taking his job seriously. Book him immediately.One race to go before the summer break and silly season is about to start making noise. Esteban watch is officially on.Like, subscribe, and find us at @brandformulapod everywhere.Lights out.#F1 #Marketing #SportsMarketing #BelgianGP #GeorgeRussell #Mercedes #TotoWolff #Whoop #Ferrari #B2CMarketing #Sponsorships #BrandPartnerships #FemaleFandom #Nespresso #BrandFormula Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

British GP | Lego & the Landostand — Episode 15We are Brand Formula: An F1 Marketing Podcast. Mordecai and Elyssa are back for episode fifteen and this was Mordecai's "home race". Over five hundred and fifty thousand people over a weekend. No Glastonbury this year, so Silverstone stepped all the way up, and it showed.We open on the LandoStand. Sixteen thousand fans in neon and blobs, Lando understood the brief in a way that nobody else on the grid has quite cracked yet. We get into why the visual identity works, why orange at Zandvoort is a murkier message, and why George's response to it told you everything you need to know about George.Then Lego. The second drivers' parade in Lego go-karts happened, and we get into the real question that raises, which is where the line sits between a sponsorship deal, driver obligations, and the ethics of using athletes in your marketing without direct compensation. We also ask whether the Lego partnership has drifted from its own brand formula. The engineering story, the STEM angle, the F1 Academy investment, and the creativity that made Lego iconic in the first place are all sitting there waiting to be used. The go-kart parade is the least interesting version of what this partnership could be.We also touch on Christian Horner showing up at Silverstone and Ollie Bearman driving Senna's first-win car in one of the best Sky segments in recent memory.Plus Fashion Roadman in the paddock giving us the logo-sport take we didn't know we needed, Shell and Ferrari's seventy-five year partnership getting a quiet nod in a weekend of very loud new money, and why by this time next year female fans will likely be the majority. The maths are the maths.Two more races before the summer break and silly season is about to get loud.Like, subscribe, and find us at @brandformulapod everywhere.Lights out.#F1 #Marketing #SportsMarketing #BritishGP #Silverstone #LandoNorris #Lego #ChristianHorner #FemaleFandom #DriverBranding #Sponsorships #BrandPartnerships #F1Academy #BrandFormula Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are Brand Formula: An F1 Marketing Podcast. Mordecai and Elyssa are back for episode fourteen, and they are both only recently recovered. From the heat. From the Croisette. From Cannes Lions.We open on Austria first. George Russell read the fine print, followed the rules to the letter, and won a race. The man will run to the stewards faster than anyone we've ever seen, but he can drive and the numbers don't lie. We also get into Crofty anointing a winner with ten laps to go in a race where everyone finished within two seconds of each other, the drone shot of the season, and why the Sky commentary bias conversation is not going away.Then we head to the south of France. Mordecai was there. Elyssa was there. The heat was unconscionable.F1 was everywhere at Cannes Lions this year, and we walk through it event by event. Salesforce announcing a new V-Carb partnership with a panel that was supposed to feature Arvid Lindblad and delivered Liam Lawson instead. Lando Norris and McLaren's CMO Lou showing up at Sport Beach to talk about golf. Carlos Sainz walking out to Smooth Operator, getting mispronounced by his own panel moderator, and still delivering on why Drive to Survive access was the best brand decision he ever made. George Russell packing a room so full people were sneaking in from the Croisette. And Susie Wolff, hosted by Naomi Schiff, laying out the F1 Academy sponsorship playbook in a way that made Mordecai realise we've been sleeping on what the Wolffs are quietly building. That one is getting its own episode.We also get into Aston Martin's FT panel on redefining luxury, the gap between their brand story and their on-track reality right now, and what a board-level moment looks like when performance and narrative are no longer aligned.And we close on Mordecai's biggest Cannes takeaway. The creator era has officially arrived at the festival, and the dinner is about to be bought for a very different guest list. Next year's Cannes will not look like this one. We're putting it on record.Like, subscribe, and find us at @brandformulapod everywhere. Silverstone is next and Mordecai is surrounded by pop-ups.Lights out.#F1 #Marketing #SportsMarketing #AustrianGP #CannesLions #McLaren #Williams #AstonMartin #CarlosSainz #LandoNorris #GeorgeRussell #SusieWolff #F1Academy #CreatorEconomy #BrandFormula Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are Brand Formula: An F1 Marketing Podcast. Mordecai and Elyssa are at the baker's dozen, and we needed to start with Lewis Hamilton. A win that transcends the sport, an anthem that broke us, and the most public phone call of his life happening directly into a press pen microphone. Brand Lewis is officially back, and we are here for it.We also get into the Monaco appeal fallout that nobody actually wins, ie. Pierre Gasly's P3 created a domino effect with no clean resolution, are caught by surprise that Sky brought us a Love Island x F1 crossover moment. Then the real conversation. F1's sponsorship deck is worth three billion dollars, sponsor visibility is up ninety percent since 2020, and nearly six hundred different brands can get exposure in a single broadcast. So we ask the question that's been building for a while. Is it time for F1 to actually get selective?We get into the rise of wellness brands on the grid, why gambling sponsors banned from the Premier League are now knocking on F1's door, the genuine tension between fintech brands and gambling categories sharing the same sponsorship deck, and what it means that Formula One is one of the only sports left where brands don't seem to care who they're standing next to. We also unpack the B2B versus B2C split quietly reshaping where sponsorship money actually goes, and whether Monaco followed Miami's playbook this year a little too closely.Plus a global lens on why some sponsorships are doing as much foreign policy work as commercial strategy, what the TikTok and Claude rollout patterns can teach us about sponsorship territory restrictions, and why Levi's covering up their own logo at the World Cup is some of the smartest brand judgment we've seen all year.We close on growth. F1 is up 138 percent in revenue since 2021 and nowhere close to plateauing, but we ask what sustainable growth actually looks like once it inevitably does.We're off to Cannes Lions next week. Catch us there or catch us back here for episode fourteen.Like, subscribe, and find us at @brandformulapod everywhere.Lights out.#F1 #Marketing #SportsMarketing #BarcelonaGP #LewisHamilton #Ferrari #Sponsorships #BrandPartnerships #FIA #CannesLions #SportsSponsorship #BrandFormula

We are Brand Formula: An F1 Marketing Podcast. Mordecai and Elyssa are one dozen episodes deep, recording straight off the back of a Monaco that gave us everything. Chaos, strategy, red flags, DNFs, speed penalties, Lewis and Toto on a podium, and a 19-year-old winning five in a row at a race that hadn't seen an Italian winner since before he was born.Monaco was Mercurial.We open on the race itself, Kim Kardashian handling the paddock with grace, Charles Leclerc committing to Ferrari for the long haul at his home race, and Toto Wolff stepping onto a podium for the first time in a decade. That last one said more than any press release could.Then we get into Brand Kimi. We break down the three pillars quietly building one of the most compelling driver brands on the grid right now, and why what makes it special is almost entirely what Kimi is not doing. He goes dark on social during race weekends. He doesn't chase sponsorships. He didn't build his brand. People built it around him, starting with a Netflix documentary that began shooting before he ever turned an F1 lap. And now he is five wins in and leading the championship at 19 years old.We talk about the worker athlete racer pillar that earns him respect from Lewis and Max in a way we genuinely have not seen between those two before. The youthful playfulness and humility that a sport full of managed personas keeps trying to sand down in its younger drivers. And the Italian identity pillar that makes him a brand ambassador for an entire country whether F1 knows what to do with that or not. Spoiler: they left him off the Imola poster.We also get into what it means that the people telling the best brand stories in F1 are increasingly the ones running the teams. Bradley Lord going from chief communications officer to deputy principal at Mercedes. Luxury fashion houses promoting their CCOs to CEO. Story-first leadership is becoming the formula and we are not surprised.Ollie Bearman gets a mention. Not everyone on the grid has been allowed to be a kid. That matters more than it sounds.Barcelona is next. Lucky episode thirteen incoming.Like, subscribe, and find us at @brandformulapod everywhere.Lights out.#F1 #Marketing #SportsMarketing #MonacoGP #KimiAntonelli #BrandKimi #CharlesLeclerc #Ferrari #Mercedes #TotoWolff #DriverBranding #BrandStorytelling #FemaleFandom #BrandFormula Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are Brand Formula: An F1 Marketing Podcast. Mordecai and Elyssa are back and they needed this race. Three formation laps, McLaren betting on rain that never came, records broken, and a 19-year-old making Max Verstappen hug him on the podium whether he liked it or not. We are healed.Kimi on the podium with Lewis and Max felt like watching history be made in real time. We talk about what that moment meant, why Carmen Hamilton needs to be on every private jet this season, and why Kimi's decision to stay off social on race weekends and just win instead is quietly one of the most sophisticated brand plays on the grid right now.Then we get into the popularity contest that F1 is becoming, and what happens when a driver's cultural capital starts mattering as much as their lap times. Is the pay-to-play era dying? We look at Lance Stroll finishing 15th at his home race (2nd to last of drivers that finished), and ask what it actually costs Aston Martin to have him in that seat. Not just financially. Reputationally. Because the I AM brand work they are doing is genuinely excellent and the experiential strategy is one of the smartest on the grid. How long can great marketing carry a driver who isn't building a story? We want Jak Crawford.We get into the divide between champion sport and creator sport, and what Ovie Soko going on Love Island has to do with any of this.Montreal gets its flowers. Fan-led, walkable, city-wide, and genuinely accessible in a way Miami simply wasn't. Someone honey-water their bagels and they get it right every time.We close on Gucci x Alpine. The AI renders are everywhere. France would effectively be off the grid. Neither of us can fully explain it and we are going to need a whole separate episode when it actually happens.Monaco is next. Elyssa is manifesting. We are saying nothing more.Like, subscribe, and find us at @brandformulapod everywhere.Lights out.#F1 #Marketing #SportsMarketing #CanadaGP #KimiAntonelli #LanceStroll #AstonMartin #Alpine #Gucci #LVMH #DriverBranding #BrandPositioning #FemaleFandom #BrandFormula Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are Brand Formula: An F1 Marketing Podcast. Mordecai and Elyssa are in double digits and both showing up in merch. You'll figure out whose when you tune in.The season is giving safety car energy. Races start, then stop, then there's a five week break, and all anyone has is hot takes and rumour mills. But the lull gave us something useful, because when the sport can't sustain the conversation on its own between race weekends, that is a brand positioning problem worth talking about.So that's episode ten. F1's brand positioning. Where it is, where it needs to go, and what happens if nobody does the work.We get into what it actually means to reposition a brand that is simultaneously the world's fastest growing sport and one of its most expensive and exclusionary. How do you serve a Rolex audience while the fastest growing segment of your fanbase wants a Swatch? We go deep on the Swatch x AP drop as a masterclass in luxury accessibility, what diffusion lines and Marc by Marc Jacobs erasers can teach F1 merch strategy, and why a 40 pound handkerchief and a 111 pound beach towel are quietly telling new fans they aren't really wanted here.We also get into what happened when F1 threw its first female fan viewing party in London and why the creator choices told the same story as the Apple Miami dinner. In and of F1. Still not the same thing.Then we build out the actual fan funnel. What does awareness look like in 2026? What's the light touch offering that turns a curious person into a committed viewer? And what does a stage four CRM fan look like? Mordecai is a stage twelve. We are not worried about her.Canada is finally on the horizon. Netflix is coming. IMAX screenings are happening. There are more access points than ever to bring new fans in. The question is whether F1 knows what to do with them once they arrive.Like, subscribe and find us at @brandformulapod everywhere. Lights out.#F1 #Marketing #SportsMarketing #BrandPositioning #FemaleFandom #FanAcquisition #Sponsorships #BrandPartnerships #AppleTV #Netflix #CanadaGP #McLaren #Ferrari #BrandFormula

We are Brand Formula: An F1 Marketing Podcast. Mordecai and Elyssa are back for episode nine. It is so great to have a race weekend again, so much so Elyssa went to Miami. In this episode, we debrief the fan experience in Miami and talk solutions to the needed acquisition funnel for female fans.What does it actually look like to experience an F1 race weekend in the host city when you don't have a race ticket? Elyssa spent the weekend at fan activations, brand events, and the McLaren thousandth race experience at Regatta Harbor. She also ended up at the Ritz-Carlton the morning of sprint qualifying watching all the B2B marketers head to the race.The verdict on Miami? Quieter than expected. More B2B conference than fan festival. Salesforce showed up with a hundred clients. The empty seats during qualifying told a story all of their own. But Cadillac came with reggaeton, a low rider, a hair touch-up station, and a genuine understanding of where they were and who they were talking to. Someone over there gets it, and we think we know who.We also get into Apple's big Miami moment. The pre-show, the post-race POV, IMAX screenings, Suzy Wolf's book launch at the Apple Store, and the dinner caption that briefly broke the internet. In and of F1 are not the same thing. Whose dinner was it really?From there we go deep on the question this whole season keeps circling back to. Female fandom in F1 is at 50% and growing. So why does almost every retention tactic still feel like a photo booth and a nail station? We get into what an actual acquisition funnel for female fans looks like, what brands are missing by going for the glossy creator moment over the long-term relationship, and what F1 could learn from the Kentucky Derby, the London Marathon, and a CRM trigger.We also share our first Brand Formula IRL news. Silverstone viewing party with The Sunday Society girls at Soho House is happening. UK-based listeners, come find us.Like, subscribe, and follow us at @brandformulapod everywhere.Lights out.#F1 #Marketing #SportsMarketing #MiamiGP #FemaleFandom #BrandPartnerships #Sponsorships #McLaren #Cadillac #AppleTV #FanExperience #SportsMarketing #BrandFormula

We are Brand Formula: An F1 Marketing Podcast. Mordecai and Elyssa are back for episode eight and race weekends are back. Elyssa is packing sunscreen and a rain poncho and heading to Miami. Mordecai is 3,000 miles away and absolutely fine about it.This episode we go wide. Really wide. We are talking about the brand formulas that makes a host country or city actually worth the investment, and what F1 does to a territory's economy, perception, and global standing when it shows up.Turkey is back on the calendar and the story of how they got there tells you everything about how modern F1 host deals actually work and why Lewis Hamilton racing in Africa before he retires is not just a dream, it is an obligation.Then America. Sixty years. Ten venues. One race held in a car park at Caesar's Palace. It took Drive to Survive, a Taylor Swift headline set, and a lot of capitalism to finally crack it. Now there are three US races, an Apple TV deal, and an 800 million dollar Brad Pitt film. We break down how the US went from F1's biggest miss to its most lucrative market, and why the secret formula there is less fandom and more B2B. The paddock club is not a fan experience. It is a sales meeting with better canapés.Elyssa reports en route to Miami on what brands are actually doing on the ground, from a $3,000 Amex supper club to a free McLaren x Sega fan weekend to a full yacht club built inside the track. Plus Sephora in the Paddock Club. We have thoughts.We close on Europe. Monza, Silverstone, Monaco, and the question of whether Madrid can deliver the three to four X economic multiplier they are promising when the new street circuit debuts.Like, subscribe, and find us at @brandformulapod everywhere. And if you are in Miami this weekend and can get Elyssa a ticket, you know where to find her.Lights out.#F1 #Marketing #SportsMarketing #Miami #MiamiGP #BrandPartnerships #Sponsorships #HostCities #F1America #Monza #Silverstone #Madrid #FemaleFandom #Sephora #BrandFormula