Formula 1’s Emily Prazer on revving up American enthusiasm through an ‘always-on dynamic’
Formula 1 Chief Commercial Officer Emily Prazer joins The Big Impression to accelerate the motorsport’s hold on Americans with year-round content and venue in Las Vegas. Episode TranscriptPlease note, this transcript may contain minor inconsistencies compared to the episode audio.Damian Fowler (00:00):I'm Damian Fowler.Ilyse Liffreing (00:01):And I'm Ilyse LiffreingDamian Fowler (00:02):And welcome to this edition of The Big Impression.Ilyse Liffreing (00:09):Today we're joined by Emily Prazer, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Grand Prix and the Chief Commercial Officer of Formula One. She's helping transform F1 into one of the fastest growing sports brands in the world, leading strategy partnerships and fan engagement across markets from Miami to Melbourne.Damian Fowler (00:30):Emily's here to talk about the road to the last Vegas Grand Prix on November the 22nd. Now, in its third year, the Vegas Grand Prix turns the strip into a global stage where sport, entertainment and culture collide under the neon lights.Ilyse Liffreing (00:46):I love that. From the 100 day countdown events to new sponsorship models and digital fan experiences, formula One is redefining what a modern sports brand can look like, especially in the U.S. market.Damian Fowler (01:02):In past years, the marketing around Las Vegas, the Grand Prix has felt like a crescendo building over several months. What's been your strategy this year as you build, it's the third year, right? As you build towards those?Emily Prazer (01:14):Yeah, this third year, so I think the difference this year is we've had two years of a foundation to figure out what works and what doesn't work, but equally we've had our building open all year, so prior, well the first year we're obviously building the building for those that dunno, it's called Grand Prix Plaza. It's the length of three NFL fields, so it's not small. It's designed and built to service the Formula One Paddock Club, which is the most high-end hospitality that we offer in Formula One. Underneath that is where the garages are and where the teams hang out, so it's quite a significant building. When we first moved to Vegas, we purchased the 39 acres of land and have invested around $500 million in this infrastructure and so the difference I think is obviously the first year we were building it, the second year we were getting to grips with owning such a significant property in Las Vegas and then moving into the third year of the event, the building's been open all year and we built something called F1 Drive, which is carting.(02:10):We've had a restaurant up there called Fool and Fork, which is Formula One, themed food and beverage as you'd expect. We built an immersive Formula one experience called F1 X and so the marketing's ramped up, but that's because locally we've been able to activate since the day after the race last year all the way through to this year, and obviously how we market is very different depending on what we're trying to do, whether it's selling tickets or whether it's driving foot traffic to the building. It's all the awareness that we need in Las Vegas to continue to grow our fan base.Damian Fowler (02:41):The a hundred day countdown, that's important,Emily Prazer (02:43):Right? That was a big one. We always go big around a hundred days. We did a strip takeover, we made sure people understood that it was a hundred days ago. We did similar for 50 days, so we use those milestones to make sure, obviously Vegas is somewhat a last minute market. Some Grand Prix go on sale and sell out in 90 minutes. We see the most amount of activity from a hundred days through to November.Damian Fowler (03:04):That's very interesting. How do you decide which moments where you target your marketing strategy in that a hundred day buildup?Emily Prazer (03:12):Oh, well, we're very fortunate that the racing continues For those, again, that aren't familiar, formula One is a 24 race calendar, which spans globally, so we typically go big around the big races as you'd expect. We've just come out of Singapore where hopefully people have seen that McLaren won the Constructors Championship. We'll go big again around Austin and Mexico. They're both feeder markets to the Las Vegas Grand Prix and we'll just continue to make sure we've got major announcements, whether it be food and beverage merchandise programming all the way through between now and race day.Ilyse Liffreing (03:42):Now, can you also talk a little bit about the F1 business summits because you're also launching that during race week? Sure. How intentional is the idea of making Vegas not just a race, but a business and cultural destination?Emily Prazer (03:56):Sure. Well, if you look at what Vegas do around other major sports, it's not that we're trying to reinvent the wheel, we're taking learnings from how well the NFL have operated there with the Super Bowl, even around WWE where you see them extend from a one or two day event through to a whole week. We are very fortunate that again, for those that dunno, formula One kicks off on Thursday with free practice, we have qualifying on Friday and then on Saturday is the race. And so we are lucky that we actually have really good opportunity for shoulder programming and so it was a lot of requests coming through from multiple stakeholders saying we'd love to get the ecosystem together and talk about how we've shifted Formula One culturally into something very different. Obviously it's a sport first and foremost, but I think everyone's now seeing the change into more of a lifestyle brand and a proposition around how we're executing with some partners, which I'm sure we'll get to, but I think a lot of it has been around how we kind of talk about that strategy and how we've grown the sport over the last five years.(04:54):So it was very intentional, it's had really great uptake and as you'll see as we get closer to the race, we'll start talking about what we're doing kind of Tuesday, Wednesday all the way through.Damian Fowler (05:04):It was interesting you brought up the mention of partners and the fact that Formula One now transcends the racetrack and I for one say follow some Formula One drivers on Instagram. How do you play into that whole notion now that Formula One is this lifestyle brand and what does that mean when it comes to partnerships?Emily Prazer (05:26):Well, we've been really fortunate that we've, formula One was bought by Liberty Media in 2017 and the handcuffs were taken off per se, where social media was something that didn't really exist in the sport prior to that and the drivers have done a great job and the teams have done a great job of giving us access collectively to the drivers. They're all a lot younger than they have been before, so we've been fortunate enough to help them build their profiles through social, but obviously the pivot came with Drive to Survive. Everyone knows that that was a big leap of faith that Formula One took to be able to give behind the scenes access. It's a complicated sport that had traditionally been kept to a different type of club and we've opened up those floodgates and obviously we're reaping the rewards of that at the moment.(06:10):It hasn't been easy, but ultimately when you have the likes of Netflix wanting to display what we do, hopefully everyone's seen the Formula One movie with Brad Pitt, which is now I think the highest grossing sporting movie of all time and Brad Pitt's highest grossing movie of all time. So that again, is a great explainer if you take that concept, the strategy around all of it has to create this always on dynamic, which isn't just about the 24 race weekends, it's about how to have brand extension through partnerships 24 7, 365 days a year that's come to life through our licensing business, which I can get to and also our sponsorship business, that the thought process was we want to sign less B2B organizations more consumer brands, not because we don't appreciate, we are always going to have a B2B element Formula One lives in that space, especially on the technical side of the sport, but as it talks about how we penetrate the fan base, how we acquire new fans and how we talk to fans differently.(07:06):One of the big pieces of it was, well, how do we show up in every shopping mall, not just in North America, but globally and using the likes of Lego? You would've seen our recent announcement with Tag Hoya. You now go to these shopping malls and you see these different brands actually activating and taking some learnings from how the US sports do it, where everywhere you go you can buy a t-shirt. I think one of my proudest moments was being at the Super Bowl last year in New Orleans and seeing people in the parade wearing Formula one T-shirts.(07:32):I was like, that shows that the strategy is working. In addition to we acknowledge that pricing of Grand Prix is expensive, they're also places you typically have to travel to, and so brand extension through license partners has been really important. We have something called F1 Drive, which we'll be rolling out, which is the carting proposition I mentioned in Vegas we have F1 arcade, which is now opening up and popping up all over North America. We have F1 exhibition, which is a tribute to the history of the sport and we'll keep growing as we want to keep penetrating and explaining to those fansIlyse Liffreing (08:07):Fans. That is really interesting hearing you describe just how different the strategy here is in the US too because F1 is such a global brand. How do you I guess, keep the brand though true to its global roots at the same time as also making it feel like America's race?Emily Prazer (08:25):Definitely not trying to make it feel like America's race. I think taking the learnings of how to speak to the audience we've acquired wherever we go, the benefit of being a global sport is we're global, but in each of those destinations we act very local. So when you're there, you very much know that when you're at the British Grand Prix that you're at Silverstone and there's all of the heritage around it, Monza, there's nothing more special in global sport in my opinion, than seeing the ZI on a Sunday run onto the grid with the Ferrari flags and what have you that you can't take that passion and bottle it up and just pop it into a US race. The US market is different, but if you look at how Miami has identified itself, you for sure know where you are. Same with Austin, where it's Texas and everybody is in cowboy boots and you know that you're in Texas and then Vegas takes it to a different level because we partner with our friends at the L-B-C-V-A and other partners in Vegas to bring that kind of extreme entertainment to life. So yeah, wherever you go, you really do know where you are and that's where I think the local element comes into play.Ilyse Liffreing (09:28):Has anything changed in the sports rights context in order for Formula One to really be able to create more social and organic marketing tied to the event?Emily Prazer (09:41):Yeah, I think it's that we've got the confidence to try different things and have given different types of access. So you'll see obviously that we have lots of short form content. Now we're noticing that this generation of fandom that we're trying to continue to excite wants to look at things slightly differently, whether it be through YouTube or TikTok. I think we're launching our first TikTok store in a couple of weeks, which I never thought we would be in a place to do, but it's a testament to where the sports got to. So I don't think the rights have changed. I think our approach to it has changed where we have the confidence because of the excitement around destinations like Las Vegas to shift our mindset. Like I say, we're not going to do it everywhere. We're going to pick specific places to test it, and Vegas for us for the last three years has served as that test testbed.(10:28):You'll see the collaborations alone that we do in the merchandise space we've not been able to replicate prior and we're proud of it. What we're doing there is giving us the confidence to deliver new partnerships across the sport. American Express is a prime example where they came in as a Vegas only partner, did a year of that, a year later became a regional partner, so they activated across the Americas and then a year after that became a global partner. So it's just showing that we can bring in these more consumer led brands, but also how we've shifted our mindset to be able to deliver against it.Damian Fowler (11:00):That happened very fast. It's kind of amazing. You touched on this a little bit, but the different audiences in the different markets. What have you learned after the first two years of hosting Grand Prix in the United States about American fans specifically?Emily Prazer (11:16):Just that you need to give them variety. They aren't going to come in and behave the same way as a traditional Motorsport fan that has been or has grown up with. The heritage of the British audience is a great example where I mentioned Silverstone goes on sale and sells out. We've had to adjust the product to make sure that we're very much catering to that audience and the programming around it, like we talked about, has been super important. People don't want to come just for one session, but they want the option to come and leave and go to a casino or go to a different show and what have you. So they're looking for all round entertainment, not just coming to watch the Formula One event, which we focus specifically on making sure that we deliver against.Damian Fowler (11:59):One thing that's interesting about Vegas as well is that it's a big draw for tourism globally as well and people fly in. So maybe that fan base is also kind of a mix of international and local.Emily Prazer (12:11):Yeah, well interestingly, we've seen the majority of our fan base come from Mexico, Canada, and within the United States. I think Vegas obviously is incredibly special that they cater to everyone. I think they have something like 150,000 hotel rooms that spam from five star all the way through, and so one of the things that we had to pivot from in the first year where we expected Vegas to be this really, really high end proposition was actually that we needed to cater for all different types of ticket package and hospitality package. So we've learned those differences. We thought that it would be very, very high end and mostly international. It's actually around 80% domestic, but drive in traffic and fly in traffic from other US markets in. Like I said, Canada and Mexico have been significant buyers of the Grand Prix and Vegas.Ilyse Liffreing (12:59):Very cool. I'm very curious what kind of feedback you've gotten so far from those fans, sponsors, broadcasters, anybody watching the sport in Vegas?Emily Prazer (13:09):Well, the sponsors love it because it's something different. Like I said, we put a lot of emphasis on the production. What we were all really surprised about was the quality of the racing. I think it has the most overtakes on the Formula one calendar, so that was something we weren't going to know until you can do simulations, but until you see cars going around the track in the first year, we didn't really acknowledge or understand how great the actual racing would be. So I think that was the biggest surprise around feedback and what the broadcasters and general audience have been quite positive about shifting. The mentality and mindset has been something that we're proud of, but it's all stemming from the confidence we've gained through promoting our own event.Ilyse Liffreing (13:47):When you look at success, what KPIs are you most interested in? Is it ticket sales or,Emily Prazer (13:54):I think it's all around halo effect for the sport ticket sales and revenue is obviously my ultimate goal. I'm the chief commercial officer of Formula One, so I don't think I can sit here and say otherwise, but brand extension and growing the fandom and being engaged, giving another touch point to the US audience when again, I mentioned Liberty bought Formula One in 2017, they were very clear that they had two very strategic objectives. One was growing the sport in the United States, the other was growing the sport in Asia and obviously Asia's taken a little bit longer for obvious reasons with COVID and what have you, but we're starting to see the momentum pick up again there. The US we heavily focused on signing Miami as a starting point as a partnership with the Miami Dolphins, which we're really happy with, proud of as they have shown us how to do it. Seeing how they put their event on before we even put on Vegas meant that we could really take their learnings. But yeah, the expectations are that we continue to grow it, that the production level remains incredibly high and that it's our tempo event in the Formula one calendar.Damian Fowler (14:55):Now, you mentioned the Netflix show Drive to Survive, and obviously there's been a lot of media around the importance of that show. Could you talk a little bit about the significance of that show, how it helps or not inspire marketing strategy?Emily Prazer (15:09):Yeah, it comes back to this always on point that I mentioned before, which is Formula One needs to be accessible for the next generation of fans to truly understand it and the next generation of fans care about the competitive nature of the racing, but they also want to understand the personalities behind the sport, and I think it gave us the opportunity to open up to be able to show who we all are. The technical terminology, the filming that went into that and the movie to be honest, has given us the opportunity to use that content to be able to explain what DRS means or what is the significance of each Grand Prix, what does it actually mean? So these drivers like the NFL, when a player puts on a helmet, it's hard to understand the emotion, but being able to get to know the drivers and the team behind the drivers, which is also incredibly important, has been really helpful in our marketing strategy.(16:01):But what it inspired was how do we talk to the different audience? Like I said before, you can't talk to that audience the same way that you talk to the 75-year-old fan that's been going to Silverstone since its inception. So a lot of it has been about how we change our thoughts around short form content and how we use different platforms. To talk to a different audience in different markets has just meant that we've had to learn how to engage and pivot from just broadcast on a Sunday to every minute of every day coming up with new ideas to talk to the fan base.Damian Fowler (16:34):That's pressure for sure. You also mentioned the different channels, and we do talk about a lot about how live sports is now available across many, many different channels and tech platforms are bidding next to traditional broadcasters. I wonder in the mix of things, and especially when it comes to the show and when you broadcast it, how important has that kind of explosion as it were of channels been?Emily Prazer (17:00):I mean we have been ahead on the curve on that somewhat for we are different. Formula One owns its own broadcast capability. We have an office or a building in the UK in Big and Hill and Kent for those that have been in London, been to Kent around London and it's incredible. We own and operate again the whole thing. So every camera, every fiber optic cable, everything you see at a Grand Prix is being produced by Formula One. We have remote operations at the track that go back to Big and Hill and we have 180 broadcasters globally. So we've always been slightly different to other mainstream sports in that regard because we produce our own show, which is helpful for us around sponsorship and what have you. But generally speaking, I think obviously the world is changing and we've got to make sure we keep up with it.Ilyse Liffreing (17:47):Looking forward, which marketing innovations, there's obviously a lot right now, but ai, contextual, programmatic, what excites you the most? Is there any digital marketing innovations?Emily Prazer (18:02):Yeah, I think AI is something that we are excited but cautious. Again, with the sport that's so technologically advanced, you've got to be thoughtful about how we use it. We also don't want to lock ourselves in one direction or the other. So we're doing a lot of work without Formula One has the most unbelievable roster of tech partners. If you think about Salesforce, AWS, Lenovo globin to name a few, they're going to tell us how to use AI to benefit our sport, not just commercially, but on the tech side. So we are very excited about it, not just from a marketing point of view, but from a just general point of view. How does AI benefit the sport? We're taking a massive amount of time to think about just general activations. I know that sounds kind of immature if you think about Formula One, but how do we bring different activity to the track outside of just races? I'm not sure if either of you saw what we did in Miami with Lego, where Lego built 10 full size cars for the drivers to race Lego cars around the track.Damian Fowler (19:05):I show my son that. That'sEmily Prazer (19:06):So cool. If you think about the content that that created around marketing, that was probably the most viral thing we've done in a very, very long time. So our marketing strategy at the moment is about solidifying the brand equity, making sure that we deliver against our partnership objectives and that we continue to grow our social platforms. I'm not going to say that we're not technically as advanced, but the data capabilities is all quite new to Formula One. Loyalty programs are all quite new to us, so for us, I keep coming back to it, but it's really about figuring out how to engage with the audience and have something to sell them. Again, we're a rights holder that doesn't have tons of assets to sell ourselves. We license a lot out, and so really it's about coming up with these creative ideas to be kind of 10 steps ahead of anyone else.(19:53):And I think we are in a very unique space. We're very lean, which means we can be very nimble. So when we're making a lot of these decisions, it's me going to Stefano who's the CEO of Formula one saying, how do you feel about us trying something like this? And that's again, where we link the Vegas piece together with the broader marketing strategy to continue to keep everyone engaged rather than it just being like a technical marketing play. Obviously we do that day in, day out, but I think for us it's the confidence we've got now to really push the boundaries and be the first to do a lot of different things, whether it be what we're doing in the broadcast around all of the different types of digital advertising and what have you. I think again, if you watch the races, you'll start to see that we are trying and testing new technologies in thatIlyse Liffreing (20:37):Way. And on that note, we talked a little bit before about the timing of the race in Vegas. InEmily Prazer (20:46):Vegas. Yeah.Ilyse Liffreing (20:47):Because it's a new time for you guys thatEmily Prazer (20:49):10:00 PM Yeah, we moved it forward from 10:00 PM to 8:00 PM which is great. I think a lot of people were struggling with how that's local time, right? Local time, yeah. When we first went to Vegas, the idea was that the timing would be in line with the boxing match or the show. So it wasn't done for any other reason than 10 o'clock on a Saturday night in Vegas is when typically you start seeing things happen. The difference being is that the distance or time you need to keep between certain amounts of sessions meant that it created gaps. So if there were delays that 10:00 PM could technically be pushed. And so we had our issues in the first year. We learned from those last year operationally delivered really well, but we still felt that it was slightly too late, hence the 8:00 PM start. So everything has shifted forward. We have F1 Academy this year, which we're really excited about, so that will, I think doors now open at 2:30 PM rather than four. So it means everything will be a lot earlier, but it's all for the show.Damian Fowler (21:48):And presumably you have a kind of global viewership as well, so that all impactsEmily Prazer (21:53):The trends. Yeah, I think it obviously will be beneficial to the east coast market, not so beneficial to the rest of the world, but we still feel good about the viewership numbers and what we're seeing. SoDamian Fowler (22:03):The true fans willEmily Prazer (22:05):Watch you, right? If not next. Exactly. Hands always come through. Exactly.Damian Fowler (22:08):Alright, so we've got some kind of quick fire questions here to wrap this up. So first off, what keeps you up at night in the lead up to this?Emily Prazer (22:16):Everything in the lead up? The lead up. I'm not sleeping at all my first year as A CEO, I think last year it would've been ticket sales. This year it's probably just security and all round operations. So as my role has expanded on the Vegas race particularly, it's just we are opening and closing the track every three hours. It's not like other street races keep their roads closed for up to seven days. We are having to keep it open and close it regularly. You're in one of the busiest roads in North America, so we don't really have much of a choice and we don't want to impact the locals any further. So I think it's just being responsible for the logistics is scary.Damian Fowler (22:58):Wow. I agree. Closing the road down is like mind blowing.Emily Prazer (23:00):Yeah, it is genuinely mind blowing. If you go to Vegas now, you can see that things are still are on their way to being built and it's like, oh wow, this is happening.Ilyse Liffreing (23:10):That is scary. I'm scary for you. What would you say is missing in the US sports sponsorship marketplace that you would love to see happen?Emily Prazer (23:19):Ooh, good question. I haven't thought about the answer to that. That's a hard one. I'm going to have to sit on that one for a minute. Don't worry. Yeah, I mean I can't speak for, I can only really speak for my sport, but I'd love to have the same access to the teams that N-F-L-N-B-A have as the rights holder. We definitely don't get to just sell the team IP as we see fit. We have something in Formula One called the Concord Agreement, which means that we have some restrictions there. But yeah, let me have a think about the broader space. Sorry. I like that answer One hit me.Damian Fowler (23:52):That's a good answer there. We can circle back and do it again if you want, but I like that to be honest. Okay. So which other sports or entertainment brands do you think are nailing their brand positioning right now?Emily Prazer (24:03):I think the NBA and the NFL, they just do it so unbelievably well and they have fandom here. I've never witnessed in the UK you very much see the fandom around a specific team. Here you see genuine fandom around the NFL. And what I love as a Brit in the US obviously is I still can't believe how each of the TV channels cross-promote each other for other games. So you'll be watching Fox and they'll be like, tune into CBS to watch this game. And you're like, oh wow. They really do do it for the greater good of the league. We would obviously it's different. We don't have multiple games in Formula One, but if I think about it in comparison to the Premier League, you really do follow the team. If I'm a Chelsea fan by the way, but I would watch Chelsea, I wouldn't then flip channels to watch Man United in the us.(24:57):I find myself on a Sunday watching three or four games and I'm like, I'm not even your core audience. It has to be something to do with the marketing that it's always there telling me what to do, telling me how to watch it. And I really admire, maybe this is actually the answer to the previous question. I actually admire how good they are at getting in my head because I think about it, I'm like, what games are on a Sunday or what playoffs are happening in the NBA and I go to watch it because it's there. Whereas like I said, premier League, as much as I'm a huge Chelsea fan and grew up with it, you just don't seem to be able to follow it like that.Damian Fowler (25:35):Yeah, that's very interesting. Would you say you were an NFL fan before you came to theEmily Prazer (25:39):Us? No, not at all. Didn't know the rules and now I'm like hardcoreDamian Fowler (25:42):Because of the marketing, I guess.Emily Prazer (25:43):Wow. Must be. They just got in my head.Damian Fowler (25:46):Amazing. Yeah. And that's it for this edition of The Big Impression.Ilyse Liffreing (25:54):This show is produced by Molten Hart. Our theme is by love and caliber, and our associate producer is Sydney Cairns.Damian Fowler (26:01):And remember,Emily Prazer (26:02):We've had to learn how to engage and pivot from just kind of broadcast on a Sunday to every minute of every day coming up with new ideas to talk to the fan base.Damian Fowler (26:13):I'm Damian. Ilyse Liffreing (26:14):And I'm Ilyse.Damian Fowler (26:14):And we'll see you next time. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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