It's the final Friday Fun for this off-season, and we've had some great ideas over the course of the series. From planning parties to writing job descriptions, we've covered every aspect of F1, but now it's time to turn our attention to the racing about to start.
In the comments, Maverick noticed that there has been very little advertising from the BBC for this season. Last year there were trailers every five minutes, and you couldn't escape the build up. Now, even Chris Moyles isn't talking about it.
So, our last Friday Fun outing for now asks:
How would you promote F1? Who would you use to sell the sport to non-fans? What slogans can you come up with?
As ever, the crazier the idea, the better, but serious suggestions are welcome to. I like the idea of coming up with a slogan for the sport, and for the year ahead.
Thanks to everyone who has helped with Friday Fun so far, all the great ideas we've had, and all who have taken part. Now, get your thinking caps on!
Earlier today I had a bit of a rant about how physical paper makes it very hard to share content amongst friends, especially when all your friends are online. The replacement of print material with its digital counterpart is a large subject and not all of it can be pointed in the direction of Formula 1, but there are a couple of further aspects I wanted to briefly cover.
Advertising Space
Many, many moons ago we took out an advertisment in the weekly magazine, Autosport. It was reasonably priced, located near the back, and ran for 12 weeks or so. Creating the initial advert wasn't hugely complicated, but we chose not to take out a second run of banners because we had absolutely no idea if, or how well, the promotion worked. Herein lies the second major problem with print.
We actually still regularly pay Haymarket money in return for promotion, we pay them a small amount every month to advertise on Autosport.com, using Google AdWords. As it's an online solution, we only pay for individual clicks and we can see if the clickthough has led to more page views or if the person took one look and went elsewhere. It's very simple to see what worked and what didn't because you have solid metrics to back you up.
Do some keywords fare better than others? Which headlines provided the most interest? Everything is completely transparent, it's quick and easy to tailor things on the fly and straightforward to vary advertisements according to budget. We have, in the past, run an advertising campaign purely for the live commenting of races. At most that means running ads for a maximum of four hours before closing them again. Try doing that in print.
Admittedly online marketing isn't perfect, many web users block banners completely for instance, but by and large paying for an appearance on Autosport.com is preferable to paying for something similar in the paper magazine. Once you've compared online versus offline, there really is no going back.
Seek and You Shall Find
Talking of going back, have you ever tried to find anything in a back issue of print magazine? You may have a vague idea of what you're looking for, and can possibly take a guess at when it occurred, but where do you start looking?
We frequently have this problem, and no matter which solution we've tried, the only thing that works is spreading a couple of years worth of content across the floor and turning pages. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Predictably digital search is much easier and we've discussed the convenience of having issue of the very searchable Grand Prix+ on your desktop several times in the past (incidentally GP+ doesn't have usable links this side of the paywall, and that's something of a pain when sharing). Autosport.com also has a useful search service that can scan the restricted content which is invisible to regular search engines.
It's still too hard to find content online, requiring multiple searches across many services, but I'll take that over flipping pages on the living room floor any day.
One thing to think about is the idea of putting back issues of magazines online. Would you be interested in searching old copies of F1 Racing right back to the first issue. I know I would and I'd be happy to pay for that too. Is it remotely possible? I have no idea but it is something to aim for.
Me and Page 22
It would be remiss of me not to mention me and page 22. Earlier this year we had a huge amount of fun after Sidepodpictures appeared in copies of F1 Racing and Racecar Engineering. I won't deny we were ecstatic to see them there. You could also argue that people photographing themselves with physical magazines is far more interesting than if they'd appeared online.
I would say that as the two magazines are published monthly there's much less emphasis on timely news stories and therefore they become obsolete less quickly. I suspect though that one day the monthly magazine's time will eventually come, and the inability to search, link, and share may mean we eventually rethink how we consume those too.
The usual process of including guest posts on a blog is for the owner to ask some of their favourite writers to come up with a piece or two to be featured. As you well know, Sidepodcast likes to do things a different way. The Facebook Group has plenty of fascinating discussions going on, and we want to bring those to the main site. The idea is for you guys to write your opinions and entries over on the group, and then we pick the best ones for feature over here on Sidepodcast. Sort of self-selecting guest bloggers, if you will. If you want to get your name in bright lights, just join the group and get writing. We read everything and everyone will be considered.
The first blog entry comes courtesy of Dan Brunell, our guest blogger guinea pig, and focuses on the plight of Super Aguri and what it means for the future of F1.
As “me” and Christine have so eloquently pointed out, Super Aguri is in serious trouble. If they last the year it will be an achievement. If they get someone to buy them it would be a miracle. However, is their slow demise a sign of things to come in F1?
It’s an understatement to say that F1 is an expensive sport. Advertising arrangements with some teams are in the tens of millions of pounds. Manufacturers themselves pour in hundreds of millions of pounds. The strong economy of the last few years have allowed many auto manufacturers and companies to spend their efforts in F1. However, as the economy goes from bull to bear and wallets get tightened; their hefty spending on F1 might be one of the first things to go from the ledger sheet.
We have already seen Toyota, Honda, and Renault question their financial commitment to F1. Many grands prix are having a hard time finding proper sponsorship to pay the amounts demanded by Formula One Management. Plus, F1's own corporate hospitality and advertising business is $3 million in the red for last year. Add to this the uncertainty of F1 beyond Bernie and Max and this adds up to some troubling waters ahead. The last time the sport looked this uncertain financially, there was a massive turnover and upheaval in the sport due to the loss of cigarette advertising. The loss of several of the manufacturers and primary sponsors could have a similar, even more pronounced, effect.
In my view, there is a lot that F1 can continue to offer for advertisers and people involved. For Pete's sake, their estimate world audience for F1 is 6 billion people! However, unless F1 lowers its costs across the board and lower their expectations from advertisers and manufacturers, the long-term finances of Formula One looks very bleak. After all, for all the riches and egos in F1… these people still have to live on a budget and within their means. If Bernie and the F1 conglomerate which he leads continues to ask high prices of everyone involved in F1, the teams, races, and ultimately advertisers will go on to more effective advertising vehicles that are less costly. If F1 starts hemorrhaging advertisers, manufacturers, and sponsors, then the sport is in major trouble.
This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.
Let’s imagine that you have come into a bit of money. Actually, let’s imagine that you have inherited a vast fortune. You’re a huge Formula 1 fan, I know, and you want your favourite team to continue racing. They get a huge proportion of their income from sponsorship, so perhaps you want to invest? Let’s have a look at the different types of sponsorship available and the price brackets they fall under.
Up to $3 million This is the cheapest option available and is less of a sponsorship and more of an association. Companies will take this route if they don’t care about having their name on the car but would rather be able to use the fact they are associated with the team as a marketing and promotional tool. This would usually occur within the industry, so tool suppliers, or uniform distributors. For example, the name of the company would appear in a small area on the car but the headed notepaper would include an image of the car out on track.
$3 million to $15 million The middle price bracket is for interested parties who do want their name on the car and want to be able to associate themselves with the image of not just the car, but the sport in general. For example, technology companies would want to be linked with Formula 1, as it is perceived as very advanced and cutting edge. Another benefit would come from the hospitality benefits of being involved with a team, front row seats, glamorous team dinners, and access to the pit lane before races. This can go down well in corporate entertaining.
$15 million to $50 million For this much money, you would expect to be a title sponsor. This means that your company name is actually included in the team, for example ING Renault F1. Your name would be in all the prominent positions on the car, littered around the garage, motor home and transporters, and would be listed in the grid and finishing positions on the TV.
Obviously the prices vary, depending on where you are on the car, and which team you are associated with. One of the front runners can afford to charge more for the advertising space on their car, whilst back markers have to reduce their fees.
It’s also worth remembering that associating with any team is only worthwhile if the team is performing respectably. You don’t have to be winning the championship, but if you manufacture cogs for a gearbox, and your car is breaking down from gearbox failures all the time, this won’t reflect well on your company.
So, consider where to spend your fortune wisely. Having looked at the options, it may not be the best idea to pick your favourite team, it may require a bit more research than we originally thought.
Margaux Matrix is a new name to me, but apparently they are a leading “brand exposure agency”. I'm not entirely sure what one does at an agency like that, but if it involves getting paid to watch F1, I'm exceedingly jealous. They have released a report going into details about F1 sponsorship and there are a few snippets I’d like to share with you.
Firstly, we have the top ten list of brands with the most TV exposure through the 2007 season. There’s a total of just under 20 hours available and Vodafone has topped the list with almost 4 of those hours. This is a vast improvement from when they were lost in the midst of a red Ferrari. Considering every team uses them, Bridgestone are a middle of the range 5th, with just under 2 hours exposure. I find this surprising, but then again, the name is pretty small across the tyre. Maybe they need to put those white marker pens to better use.
Aside from Bridgestone, there are only two names that do not belong to either Ferrari or McLaren, and that’s Red Bull and ING.
This is fascinating to me. If I sit back, close my eyes so I don’t look at any pictures, and try to think of an F1 sponsor – the first names that spring to mind are Lenovo, Kingfisher and Kenwood. Kenwood is always up there, because I think it’s amusing how small their name is on the car.
This may just be me, but names like Vodafone-McLaren-Mercedes are so ingrained in my brain, that I actually forget Vodafone are anything but part of the team’s name. I have a Vodafone mobile, but I don’t associate that with those cars I read about every day. How’s that for brand awareness?
The report also looks at which part of the car is the most prominent and gets the most exposure. I was rooting for sidepods, obviously, but it turns out the very top of the tub, right in front of the driver, gets 43% of the TV coverage share. All the other bits hover around the 5% mark.
Again, I can’t understand this. When I’m watching F1 on TV, the majority of time I’m either looking at the very front of the nose (usually to see if there’s a BMW badge, and therefore know it’s not a Williams!), or I’m checking out the rear wing as it comes racing towards me. Those are the two most obvious bits I can think of.
Clearly I’m not watching Formula 1 the way I should be.
You can read more about the report here (pdf link).
According to the marketing website Brand Republic, ITV are having to drop the price of their proposed 2008 Formula 1 sponsorship package due to insufficient interest.
The company recently lost 2007 sponsors Honda, after it was claimed the asking price would increase from £2.5m up to £4m for the coming season. It now looks as though this years price will be roughly similar to last years, despite the increased interest the channel received due to some bloke from Stevenage.
Recently, ITV's head of sport Mark Sharman, stated that:
What sport does, and Formula One in particular, is deliver an ABC1 male audience, and that's priceless for us.
One might suggest that there is a price, and that £4m is a bit too steep.
Last year the Brazilian Grand Prix, which witnessed the climax of the driver's championship, managed to net an average of 7.3m viewers, compared to just 4.9m the previous year. So there may well be a valid argument for a price increase, but it would appear that so far, ITV haven't found anyone willing to cough up as much as they'd like.
You can read the full story on Brand Republic, although be warned that it's a subscription site and you'll have to log in to view the whole article.
