Fast Laps, Faster Trends: How F1 Teams Are Winning Socials
Scuderia Ferrari has 18.8M followers on Instagram, that’s 13M more than they had just 5 years ago.
Prestige In This New Era
For decades, Ferrari has represented excellence in Formula One (F1), but even the icons have had to evolve in this new era of TikTok Trends and memes.
After F1 was purchased by Liberty Media in 2017, it began a new push towards younger fans, especially Gen Z. This meant F1 teams had to redesign their communications strategy from traditional and exclusive messaging to a more transparent, personality-filled brand identity.
Ferrari's growing online presence on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube has led them towards a lighthearted content style, such as behind-the-scenes videos, trend-driven content, memes, and more.
C2 Challenge
One example of this new lighthearted and personality-filled content is their now famous Cˆ2 Challenge videos on YouTube.
This challenge originated from a controversial team radio message where Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc "We are on plan Cˆ2," but rather than ignoring the memes circulating on social media, Ferrari leaned in.
Lego F1 Activations
More recently, the Ferrari drivers, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, also participated in a Lego F1 race at the Miami Grand Prix.
While not the high-speed action of a real F1 race, the playful race in Lego-built F1 cars was extremely successful in capturing young audiences and showing a lighter side of all the drivers as they seemed to genuinely enjoy it.
In addition to the race and its social media clips being trending for weeks, LEGO’s release of the F1 car building sets was a huge success with all ages.
What It Means & Why It Matters
Over the last several years, Ferrari has successfully maintained their aura of excellence while simultaneously embracing this new personality-filled PR strategy of memes and trends.
They and the other 9 teams in F1 have proved that social media can be the most powerful tool for gaining new audiences in Gen Z and other demographics.
My question… where do we evolve from here?
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Sources:
https://www.gpblog.com/en/general/liberty-media-revitalises-formula-1.html
Source: @scuderiaferrari on Instagram
