We like to get to a few different conferences each year to push our thinking. This also ensures we don't settle for anything less than remarkable work for our clients. Being in new environments with new series and new thinking allows us to take insights back home and apply them to our work.

The BlackBook Motorsport Forum is the flagship business event for stakeholders in global motorsport. We enjoy this event because it is the ultimate B2B industry event bringing racing promoters, teams, circuits, brands, OEMs and key services together to discuss motorsport from all the angles required for the entire industry to succeed.

We covered our thoughts on some select sessions listed below by topic.

Closed-door Roundtable with World Racing Group

Our first session of the day was a closed-door session hosted by World Racing Group. You will recognize them as a sanctioning body for the likes of World of Outlaws and other forms of dirt racing. It was refreshing to see this group in London as 95% of their business is based in North America.

That’s not dissimilar from SD, and their reasons for joining the conference in London were aligned to why we join each year. It offers a unique chance to see what others are doing, and also share what we do that may be helpful to more globally-minded brands interested in entering the North American marketplace.

We were joined in the room by other agencies and brands. The discussion was focused on what brands are looking for and how different properties can provide platforms for different objectives that brands may have. The candid roundtable was a nice starter to the broader sessions of the day.

Ferrari & Peroni: A Match Made in Italy

Ferrari was the talk of the conference this year. They had just signed HP as their new title partner and were preparing to launch their special-edition livery for the Miami Grand Prix. The first session focused on another recent lifestyle partnership between the team and Peroni. The architects of the partnership from Peroni’s brand side and Ferrari’s partnership side gave us a look into how this came to be, culminating with a screening of the most successful digital campaign in Peroni’s history (above).

Peroni was looking for a platform that allowed them to engage with fans in person and digitally all year long. The global nature of the brand demanded a global reach. They had previously found F1 through a team deal with Aston Martin for the last few years, and it seemed like this initial agreement was used for the brand team to get their arms around what it took to activate and engage with F1. They split from Aston Martin last year and naturally were attracted to the ultimate celebration of Italian sport, Scuderia Ferrari.

Strategically, it all aligns. Prior to the partnership, Peroni had a business objective of 20% of global business being non-alcoholic. They are seeing younger generations not drinking as much yet being even more social. They aren’t the first entrants to this space, as Heineken has notably promoted their 0.0 product in F1 for a few years now. It’s not uncommon to see brand leaders follow each other, as it’s a sign their audiences are on the move.

What was refreshing to hear from Peroni was what they were not trying to do. They made it clear they weren’t there to capture data, to help the team operate, or to improve their speed. They are there to become the official beer of Ferrari fan base and they want to empower the togetherness. Keeping this front and center allowed for the campaigns to remain light-hearted and jubilant.

Just because you have all of these elements lined up as a brand does not mean the team you want to sponsor is available. In Ferrari’s case, they have very strict evaluation criteria through which they put all prospective partners. As a lifestyle partnership, this had to have a strong brand alignment. Ferrari made it clear that brand leads and business performance follows. This approach is evident in Ferrari’s zero-advertisement policy for itself or its road car business. Their entire communication platform is based on motorsports, more specifically, F1.

Once everything was agreed upon in theory, the realities of the challenge set in. Stakeholder support, activation, rights navigation, legal issues and brand approvals were all named as the most challenging components of this agreement. The two sides simultaneously noted that even though the stakes were higher, the results spoke for themselves and made it all worth it. These types of partnerships generally do not garner immediate sales success. We have noted 12-18 months as the timeframe you should expect noticeable bumps if your campaigns were successful.

Last Fan Standing: Creating the Ultimate Fan Experience

Moving from the team level to the sanctioning body level, this panel featured the Commercial Officers of F1 and MotoGP - two of the most global and wide-reaching properties in all of motorsports. They are promoted wildly differently and so have wildly different challenges to overcome.

F1, for example, is a marketing and content machine. Interest and promotion have spiked considerably since Liberty Media took over commercial rights. New events like the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Drive to Survive, karting programs, and F1 Arcade have all contributed to the popularity.

However, the racing and on-track product is really not good at all. The last few seasons have all been over before they have even started making for a sustainability issue. Once you get the “new fan” in, will you keep this fan? Will they come back if one driver is always dominating? It was noted in a coffee break conversation that this dominance dynamic in F1 is nothing new for the last thirty years - but never before has the sport been so highly promoted. So, is the increase in experience enough? Or do you really need compelling competition to thrive?

That’s where MotoGP’s strength lies. The series has prioritized the racing and on-track product over all else - and the results on track for the core fan are exceptional. The 22 races they feature in 18 countries have unique promotions catered to the local core fan. This is a difficult-to-scale model as their is a lack of efficiency for the wider MotoGP brand around the world. However, it does cater to the core fan in a way many properties aren’t able to touch.

They have self-admitted struggles with upping their rider profiles and the way they tell their own story. They made it clear that you don’t need to ride a motorcycle to enjoy the product and that once onsite, the event is a premium and accessible experience.

Having been to many F1 events and MotoGP events, the two sides sharing their approach was validating and interesting. The case study shows multiple ways to grow depending on your priorities and the direction you want to take the product. F1’s approach feels fast, aggressive and successful, but opens up questions of bubbles and sustainability. MotoGP’s approach feels conservative and thoughtful, but opens up questions of lacking pace and possibly getting passed by other properties. There is plenty of room for both and we look forward to what each series puts out for us all to enjoy.

The Road Ahead: What's Next for Motorsport Series?

The final session we wanted to focus on featured three very different properties: NASCAR, Formula E and World Rally Cross (WRC). We wanted to focus here because this session perfectly illustrated why we love motorsports as a platform so much. Here, you have three multi-billion-dollar series reaching worldwide that are all categorized as “motorsports.” Yet, when you look closer as a brand wanting to get involved, they all offer different experiences for different demographics. This is why it is important to consider what you plan to sponsor as a brand carefully.

You could receive the directive to “sponsor motorsports” from your boss, but this isn’t like if that same boss told you to “sponsor American football.” If you got the American football directive, you’d go straight to the NFL without hesitation. If you get the motorsports directive, what are you going to do?

Okay, now into the session.

All the panelists acknowledged that global motorsports is continuing to have a moment with popularity and mainstream traction. This has been led by the major series and benefitted all series. NASCAR has been particularly bold with its schedule, featuring one of the most diverse racing formats available. The series races on ovals, road courses, dirt, short tracks and now city courses thanks to its successful debut in Chicago in 2023. They shared that 82% of tickets sold in Chicago had never been to a NASCAR race before - and this new fan metric is an important objective for them. NASCAR’s on-track product has never been better, allowing them to connect with the core fan while experimenting with picking up new fans for the future.

Formula E has historically led the way in digital engagement because it lets fans actually influence competition on the track. Originally, fans could provide additional power to their favorite drivers by upvoting on social media. They have expanded this to their “Virtual Race Engineer” feature to make the broadcast more engaging and unique.

The series also seeks to live out its sustainability messaging by doing more than what they do on track, even though it has been net-neutral from its inception. Many companies are working to address how much waste they produce, but not as much focus has been given to the new types of talent sustainable energy will require. Formula E developed a program for 12-18-year-olds that helps address this by bringing groups of students around the world directly to the race track and folding them in behind the scenes. This program shows them just how many different career paths are available in motorsports, specifically Formula E, and acts as a talent development tool.

Our favorite storyline from WRC was about the series’ power supply. Most series are focused on the silver bullet solution - electric, hydrogen, hybrid, whatever it may be.

WRC is not taking this approach at all. They recognize that the diverse parts of the world they compete in will require equally diverse solutions. They are looking to be the platform that allows brands and OEMs to sample these different solutions to see how they can each be scaled according to the need.

This concept from WRC is a good place for us to conclude our thoughts from this year’s forum. We ultimately believe that motorsports is the ultimate platform for brands to activate on because of what these different series are providing.

Always pushing the limits, always trying new things, always improving.