My spies in the F1 paddock are telling me that there are going to be several big sponsorship announcements in the lead up to Austin, and at the Grand Prix itself. Logically one would conclude that the firms concerned will probably be US multinationals with the kind of global interests that F1 can help to develop.
It is still not clear who will be involved but a few months ago there were lots of rumours of Coca-Cola. The main brand does not really make sense in F1 because the product already has an amazing global footprint, but one can imagine the company using one of its many other brands, particularly it’s energy drinks, as this dement of the market is where Red Bull is dominant.
There has also been talk of several financial institutions and technology companies and there is still much effort going into getting Indian and Chinese companies into the sport.
Any big new sponsorship deals are good news for F1 at the moment as money is short in many markets as a result of the economic troubles of late. Up to now there have been more firms packing up and leaving F1 so seeing some new money coming in will be very good for the sport.
Watch this space!
joeblogsf1 
Joe, It seems that mclaren has not been running with lucozade branding on the back wing for the past 8 or so races, instrad having maximuscle. Was this always part of the deal or can we read further into this.
I think they are both GSK brands
Maximuscle is a GSK brand.
http://www.gsk.com/media/press-releases/2012/maximuscle-powers-vodafone-mclaren-mercedes-drivers-through-the-2012-formula-1-season.html
Oops, didn’t add that. What I meant to mean is, is there any significance in the switching between the gsk brands lucozade and maximuscle
GSK opted to run “Boost” in India. The name of the Indian energy drink they produce. I assume they run brands based on the viewing demographic of each race. Strange that the default appears to be the German brand rather than a British brand on the British team with British Drivers.
Thinking about the TOONED reference elsewhere in these comments, It’s interesting that Mclaren and GSK deem it appropriate to promote an energy drink to kids. Surely a more appropriate brand for TOONED would be Ribena?
Probably GSK wanting to maximize the publicity for a range of it’s products. Makes sense. I never knew what lucozade or maximuscle were until seeing them on the car.
GSK likely switched it as changing EU laws meant the maximuscle brand could no longer make certain health claims in advertising. Also a lot of UK athletes have their nutrition supplied by maximuscle and there was an Olympic Games coming up which already had some athletics related lucozade coverage from previous events.
Joe..
Doesn’t show in their website, but, who knows ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlaxoSmithKline
http://www.gsk.com/products/our-consumer-healthcare-products.html?alphabetCode=3
Maximuscle is indeed a GSK product (recently aquired), see the footer of the maximuscle website:
http://www.maximuscle.com/
Mother? Is that sold in Europe & Asia?
They’re gaining traction here in Oz.
In the rest of the world, Mother is Relentless. Same logo font used, same drink, just different brand
Mother (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_%28energy_drink%29) is sold as Relentless (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relentless_%28drink%29) in Europe.
Is there any reason that the McLarens have been running with Tooned on the rear wing?
No complaints from me as it provides a link for my girls between the Tooned cartoons (which they love) and the races themselves.
But it does look a little like they are missing a sponsor, or have had to take it off for legal reasons (like no alcohol advertising etc.)
Isn’t that where Santander used to be? I just noticed recently that the McLarens don’t seem to be carrying any Santander branding any more.
Maybe the new sponsors are from the Gulf….
Joe, I would appreciate if you can enlighten us about the increasing involvement of Arabs/middle east in motorsport nowadays. Apart from the number of F1 tracks, they have shares in most teams and they also “invade” the World rally championship with the Abu Dhabi Citroen deal and the almost signed Qatar ford deal…. Ok I know they are the only people having money despite recession in Europe and elsewhere…
There is a lot of talk.
Presumably Mercedes are hoping that Coke will up the ante by pushing Monster as a major sponsor, maybe even title sponsor for their team.
Such a move could perhaps be encouraged by the arrival of Lewis Hamilton, whose US profile I’d expect to be pretty big (compared to the rest of F1). He certainly “rolls” with the right “homies” given that he’s apparently on good terms with Jay-Z.
Belive me Jem, Hamilton’s profile here in the US is almost non existing, he makes some TV commercials for Mobil along with a Nascar driver and they only get played during the F1 races. Other than us F1 fans here in the US maybe a few people know him as the boyfriend of a C list celebity.
In mainstream american pop culture the only F1 names that have any resonace in are Ferrari, Mclaren and maybe Schumacher.
that doesn’t mean that Hamilton cannot be an interesting ambassador to american brands, specially if the want to make headways into the European markets.
Does the “almost” not put him a step ahead of most of the F1 fraternity?
By about the thickness of a pussycat doll’s stockings 😉
It’s a trading thing. When one asset crashes, people are selling out to something they think is safer. So, perversely, just as F1 is right in the middle of working out (one hopes) what it wants to be, and therefore a classical short, there’s a potential wall of money running from other media. The adage says it’s easy to be bearish, hard or complicated to be bullish when there’s a down move.
That online thing: GOOG drops 25% Q3 YOY, that’s 10BLN a year floating about. Now take that across that market, Cringely says 75% down on the network he uses, that’s a lot of moving money.
I am not now out of habit bashing the online ad game, just because I love print, it’s because the money moves faster in online adverts, and to say the least expectations were always ludicrous bordering on the psychopathic. The very pitch was about fast moving your spend. More rationally, you don’t need much move in overall spend to fund F1 handsomely. Nor much insight to notice that when consumer spending contracts, high margin brands scramble for market share, are readily punished for cutting marketing.
is the red bull sector of the market REALLY demented joe ?
Depends on how much of it you drink. 🙂
Coca cola owns a large number of premium brand energy drinks, health and lifestyle brands and given that many countries have recently banned or regulated health claims/benefit claims for many of these brands it makes sense that these could appear on an upmarket formula like F1. I mentioned GSK promoting maximuscle early this year before mclaren switched it’s wing advertising.
Either way – it is good news if the US wants to float some money into the teams. I don’t know much of the business side other than what I read from you Joe but it was looking like the beginning of the end for a lot of teams.
Monster energy drink is a Coca Cola company that is currently involved with Mercedes. Any chance they would step up to a more visible role with Mercedes? Full team sponsor? Is Petronas a long term Mercedes partner, could they pull out?
My first thought was Monster. They already have a big presence in racing, and if what I read above is correct, they are a Coca-Cola brand.
Monster actually leads Red Bull in sales according to an article I read recently. This surprised me, but if it’s in print, it must be true!!! Ha ha ha…
Monster is not Coca Cola owned
Yes, sorry. Apparently Coca Cola have a distribution deal with Monster, which doesn’t mean that much I suppose.
any of those sponsors land deal with Enstone team?
I think so
Wasn’t there talk a couple of years ago of Monster sponsoring Raikkonen in NASCAR, or was it simply him joining Ken Block’s existing Monster-sponsored team?
And would one of these deals possibly include a share option of sorts… an advertising/minority share perhaps?
I am not in a position to say with any certainty. Yes, possibly. Maybe not.
Hi Mani,
GP+ had some further interesting snippets about the Enstone team and sponsorship…..
Kris
It was interesting during the TV coverage at the weekend, just how often they referred to Lotus as the “Enstone Team”. I’ve not seen that before. It is not uncommon to talk about “all the team back at “, but they were almost tyring not to say the L word.
Joe,
It -is- great news.
I can’t help feeling though that if it’s US-based multinationals, that’s going to mean more money for Ferrari, Mclaren and maybe Red Bull, and less chance in future of the kind of close competitive pack we’ve enjoyed this year.
Any light you can shed on where the money’s rumoured to be going?
New sponsorship is phenomenal news for F1. Speaking of sponsorship, I finally subscribed to Grand Prix+.
Wow. Why did I wait so long? Thank you for the excellent work!
You are now ONLY source of F1 news that I bother reading. All the rest seem to be just have a bunch of quotes tied together with minor comments, especially about the “sound of an F1 car”. I guess they have good sound systems hooked to their TVs!
I am still waiting for another one of your “radioactive pills” or whatever you call them! LOL
I just saw this picture.
How many is it now?
20-something more than that
He smiles!
A smiling face, nice to see in an F1 paddock pic.
I want one of those cardboard cut-out, like they did for Spock, and many others. Then leave it around, with one of those 2D barcodes people photo their phones, giving them a free next edition of GP+
Serious beers / fine wine, to anyone who can get the similar in the back row of Friday uni-laterals 🙂
Reference: http://goo.gl/RXuX1
Only, can that be someone else, being held out there. Like Bernie, holding out a pictire of someone holding up a fake pit pass . . Oh, F1 Inception!
So let me get this straight…. Some “American multi-national” wants to put 10 times the money they’d put into NASCAR for a sport that has — and sorry to say, this is the truth — a following the size of men’s lacrosse here in the USA? Right now, NASCAR and IndyCar are gasping for breath due to the lack of sponsors, and by comparison, the cost–per-eyeball is much more favorable for those series, and the “activation” costs are far, FAR lower.
Worse yet, most American companies are split up (in terms of advertising budgets) into regions, and — as CART found out — it’s tough to get one region to sponsor an event in another region.
Some American companies were indeed involved. However, the most notable — HP — is suffering a massive downsizing right now. It is more likely that the American companies now in the sport pull back, as their sales in Europe, South American and the PacRim are slated to slump in the coming couple of years.
There is a big world outside the United States.
But your article is American-centric, so my response was as well. Tell me — don’t you recall these “big sponsor coming” rumors from the paddocks of other racing series? I certainly do, and playing the odds here, I’m doubting that it will come to pass.
Doubt away. You will find that I am right.
Bet. How many is “several”, how much will the sponsorship be worth to be “big”? Mind you, the the announcements must come by the end of the Austin event. You might get >A< sponsor announcement, and I'm betting the terms won't be disclosed even then.
I am telling you what I think is happening, based on my digging around in the F1 paddock. I don’t know everything but if I was a gambling man I’d be tempted to think that insider tips are more reliable than blue sky guesswork from people who are not actively involved in the sport. We’ll see, won’t we?
But that is exactly where it makes sense, just after a election, to announce a big Anglo – Saxon sponsorship. Where else does a American firm announce? Also, if Obama is on, and the caucus stats are so against him despite the polls (of Monday) who likes ‘bama? Tech firms.
You could bolster the argument (if it isn’t closed) that “Murica” better shift some tech nous to get about rights again. That’d about square the geek / US tech / Democrat circle nicely. Not to mention, getting a angle on a European gig is likely to play well with some quarters bipartisan.
I focussed too much on the internal things. In theory, a productive opportunist could see lots of ways to use F1 as a conduit for more serious research. Might take forgetting the RRA nonsense, see my earlier, but longer run I see no way but to innovate our way out of this. If we could do that, at the expense of high margin consumer oriented firms, i.e. a kind of arbitrage that your consumer goods sponsorship pays in a bit more to innovation, that’d be for me just where I’d like to see F1, and not far from where I think the economy can work, should be working towards.
I’m just painting by numbers, but there’s a lot more yellow and blue and white above the green horizon when I think like this. The alternatives look depressing. I’ll gladly take it on the chin for any other predictions of mine which have been rubbish.
Geek, you say men’s lacrosse like its a bad thing. Did you know it is the fastest growing sport in high schools and college now? No longer is the game a bastion of the Northeast and Maryland/Virginia states. It has spread to the midwest and left coast on down south. The University of Michigan just fielded it’s very first D-1 team this past season, and many more traditional football powers will soon do the same.
As with lacrosse….F1 will grow in America. And grow it will.
As someone with a bit of a take on Marketing geek49203 the situation you describe
“as their sales in Europe, South American and the PacRim are slated to slump in the coming couple of years.”
Seeing that coming its exactly the right moment to start putting in some sponsorship of a sport that is pretty big in Europe, South America and Japan, and upcoming in other Asian regions exactly the counter markets declining and gain from upcoming markets in India, China etc.
Interesting…and a good point.
I may well be wrong and JoJ please correct me, but isn’t Coca Cola the biggest most well known, widest reaching, brand in the world? In other words massively bigger and better known than F1?
It would make sense to me if Coke were to be championship sponsor rather than sponsoring any particular team. The FIA Coca Cola F1 Championship, this would then tie in with Bernie’s desire to exploit event food, drink and clothing sponsorship. Of course Red Bull’s nose would be put out of joint, just a tad, but then maybe they need a bit of competition. (Their policy of buying up sports wholesale does not win friends everywhere)
One has to ask why, now that audiences are falling, and are unnecessary for FOM’s income, would major new sponsors want to be involved, it only makes sense to me if there is a major restructuring of F1 in the offing, but there can’t be, it’s all just been signed off again.
Usually score that way, rpaco.
But the classic is in ’97 in asia they thought they could rest a bit. Pepsico came in, spent big dollar, and shifted huge sales to their side. Either way around, ‘case I fluffed that as well, the principle stands: what margin do you operate on? How wide a market? You simply use your brand recognition as a multiplier, not as a given.
Wish my cous was still doing marketing for them, get a inside view, such as he might allow. But essentially, CocaCola is “it” for brands. Wish they’d sort out proper cane sugar sweetner, though. Much tastier. But that has a unhappy historical origin, I understand, arguing with land owners . .
I think sub brand for CocalCola is silly. Not at this level of prominence. Pepsi cannot do it, historically they are blue jeans and hot rivets, Coke was the posh brand.
You could even take the classical glass bottle curve and get a half modern F1 car profile . . .
. . However . . . this is out of bounds for trad Coke ads. I find it very hard to reconcile with their general family plan. Think it was Doug Daft who spoke up saying there’s be three running taps in each household, hot cold and coke, based on the avg. family drank more coke than cold tap water. Roberto Goizueta or someone as good might finagle the connecting ground.
But, if you want to be bold, well the CocaCola bottle is not dissimilar from the Nike swoosh. Now, if you put the two next to eachother, which one, let’s include which of Coke, Nike, and RB, is the most recognisable?
That’s where the brand multiple applies. At least visually.
That all said, they’s be better taking a financial deal, like PM, and securing what might be very cheap prices now, for long term, and taking a break to suss any plan. That did very well for Ferrari as a team, and such things cannot pass unnoticed by others. Enstone Lotus needs that kind of continuity.
Move over your thinking, just a bit, and F1 needs a bulge bracket ad lead more than vice versa. If you’re 6’6 and 300lbs, and you make a move, others follow. I am pretty sure half the grid’s finances would make a weak drink not best cut with fizzy sugar water, and so you start with that leverage.
If I follow that thought to conclusion, a good serious sponsorship could pull the sport back from the brink.
I’s also like to see liquor sponsors go from F1. How we traded tobacco for booze associations, I have no idea, but it puts me off, no matter my tolerances for the stuff.
Further, if you start on how F1 has pushed into the near third world for sponsorship, you are down to a few people like Proctor Gamble, Unilever, and Coke or Pepsi who can work out there. In terms of selling F1 to the masses, being on the side of a coke can for a day is more valuable than having a nail biting race at Budh.
I always miss the big emphases when it comes to market moves, because I am looking too closely at x1 y2 or z3, but there are some points that could align. It is possible just to buy into ad or sponsor positions on spec. I do that. Just not on this scale.
Moreover, as for branding, Coca Cola is more stable than banks, moreso even than Marlboro, in perception.
So the real question is, would a big sponsorship from Coke get them privileges and concessions? I think there’s about a couple of weeks before the CA rolls to rigor mortis again.
I’ll take that as “yes” then! My contact with the ad industry ended around 15 years ago, but I would say that coke beats Nike 10 to 1. Not that I can understand the excitement about what were basically plimsolls when I was at school.
In my last job, I was company first reader for all the auto news weeklies and monthlies and well as the magazines (I marked them up and listed pages to read before internal circulation to save everyone and the company time.) thus I became entirely immune to car ads, in fact all ads in mags and on tv unless they annoy, then I would not buy on principle if I were ever in a position of choice. There are some very annoying ads on tv whose product I would not buy to save my life. There are others whose product is not revealed until the last second, whilst no doubt the back story the agency sold to the customer was great, they forget we cannot see I on tv. I am with Sir Alan Sugar on tv ads.
Nothing could benefit F1 more, than an advertising war between Coke and Pepsico some interesting below the line stuff at venues could result too.
Winners anthem played by Pepico marching band with Coke cheerleaders twirling and leaping in the background, something really crass and brash and if we could get a political scandal going, F1 would be right up in the ratings again, for entirely the wrong reasons of course but then some of it might stick. All that is of course if F1 survives, something I shall grumble about in my own blog.
LOL, proper comment there, rpaco!
I’m still reeling from my first exposure to TV advertising in years. It’s gruesome. Insofar as Sky detunes a lot of the ads, because they’re raking in your money anyhow, it’s rather as if they are not selling you a sports or movie fix, so much as a anti-ad serum. “Yeah, you can go watch terrestrial, but you know you’ll catch something..” Looking forward to your grumbling!
Very interesting Rpaco. Thanks!
Pepsico and Coca-Cola are already entering into bidding battles at F1 venues. I think the Indian Times ran an article on the deal for soft drink supply at the 2012 Indian GP (which Pepsico won)
Surely Pepsico would be US beverage company most in need of brand building? As I understand it they are very keen to regain market share in LatAm, more specifically Mexico
Apple have an agreement with Mercedes to develop intergrated systems, could there be a business to business deal there?
In stories published yesterday Mercedes wil increase the F1 team budget for next year by 30%. It wasn’t clear if this increased budget will come from Mercedes themselves or new partners.
You’ll know when there’s a Port Louis GP, because none of the vapor-cash can be repatriated 🙂
And here I was thinking that F1 would leave just a *few* sponsors for sports car racing… 😀
What might be the impact to the sponsorship announcement if the Jersey GP is postponed? Perhaps the sponsorship proposal was based on two US races or a 4 race Nth/Sth Amercian time zone schedule (as you’ve often pointed out as being attractive).
Throwing guesses into the hat: either covered by force majeure or material adverse event clauses; or possibly even better to have focus on one race in the calendar, better being for whoever booked most exposure at Austin. I’d say glass half full, but buyers would likely take the apposite position, at least tactically, to see what they can get.
Yeah, I can see Full Throttle on the rear wing of a car soon. 😉
http://www.drinkfullthrottle.com/
That Full Throttle just re-upp’d with NHRA is of no concern. That the Full Throttle people didn’t do much to activate, no problem.
I have to laugh a little here. Wouldn’t it be ironic to see Full Throttle Drinks as a title sponsor to CoTA when it was Tavo Hellmund’s company Full Throttle Productions that started all this?
Indeed, Steve! I am suprised that a title sponsor has not yet been announced? I would have to take a stab at Pirelli, Bud Light, Red Bull, or Mobil1 for sponorship of the USGP as they have been most active in our developing scene so far here in Austin.
Joe, are you aware of a title sponsor for the USGP?
I’d have to look it up.
Hey joe, did I you hear the news. Eddie cue, SVP at Apple Computer jobs st joined the board at Ferrari!
Wow. Spell check. Eddie cue, svp at apple computer joins the Ferrari board