From Tobacco to Crypto: The Search for the Next Lucrative Vice Motorsport Sponsor
Tobacco use is widely recognized as a lethal habit and has for all intents and purposes disappeared from the visible marketing landscape.
You’d be hard pressed to remember the last time you saw a tobacco brand anywhere but behind a store counter, yet racing fans will know it wasn’t always this way.
As destructive as the tobacco industry was and continues to be, there is no denying just how mightily their involvement shaped motorsports. Obviously we can talk about liveries which have since become iconic, and it’s shocking just how many names from a certain era are actually tobacco-related.
Marlboro, Gitanes, John Player Special, Silk Cut.
All tobacco brands, and that’s only a handful of examples!
Why did tobacco companies invest so heavily in motorsports?
They did so because the return on investment they received allowed them to quite literally engineer several eras of motorsports.
Tobacco companies also defined the modern era of racing sponsorship, and they did so for reasons that still form the bedrock of why any brand enters the sport today.
Platform Wars: What Video Game Consoles Can Teach Us About Motorsports Regulations In the WEC and WRC
Like consoles, motorsport series must offer a compelling environment for their “developers”, the manufacturers and teams that bring the show to life.
In the console world, platform owners want to secure exclusive titles to entice players to buy their console, and this can be the reality in racing as well, with major brands often wanting or needing to prioritize among several motorsports options. And just like Sony and Microsoft fought to win over developers, the WEC and WRC are competing for factory support.
Part 3 - The Case Study - Drive To Survive: WEC Edition
The WEC doesn’t need reinvention, it needs translation, and a Drive to Survive-style series would provide not only the perfect educational format for a potential audience, but also the catalyst for changes within the series itself to make it more accessible, while keeping all the elements that make it unique in place.
Indeed, the challenge isn’t to overhaul the series from scratch, but to repackage it with intention, and a Drive to Survive-style series is the perfect opportunity to educate future audiences in an engaging way that makes them want to engage further with the WEC.
Part 2 - The Tradeoff - Drive To Survive: To Grow, You Have to Let Go
Hardcore fans don’t scale. They retain, and retention is not the same as expansion.
This is the problem that has plagued series like WRC and IndyCar. Their fans are knowledgeable, passionate, and loyal, but they’re not the future (if they were, there wouldn’t be nearly as much hand-wringing about where these series are headed).
Designing your product (your broadcast, branding, social content, format) to please them is like designing a smartphone for flip phone users.
You’re locking yourself into yesterday’s potential.
This isn’t always intentional. In many cases, the issue is that no one has clearly defined what growth looks like and where it should be headed.
So the default becomes: “Let’s not upset the base.”
But if you haven’t identified who your growth audience is, and what they expect, then you’re not just failing to attract new fans. You’re actively reinforcing the ceiling above you.