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Brands on an F1 jersey. Photo: Zu Photography
The Formula 1 (F1) race is as synonymous with advertising and brands as it is with the race itself. Teams rely on sponsorships and partnerships to fund their operations, while brands gain exposure through their association with the high-profile event. To assess the impact of this association, media monitoring company, Meltwater, conducted a study to see which brands were most talked about online before, during, and after the Singapore race weekend.
About Meltwater
Meltwater, a media monitoring and analytics company, analysed digital content such as news and social media posts from September 18 to September 24 to identify which brands garnered the most attention during the Singapore F1 race weekend.
The findings of this study are especially relevant given how Formula 1 has recently introduced financial regulations, which induce a cap on the amount teams can spend on races. Since services and products from sponsors and partners are included within this cap, F1 teams have become more selective in choosing which brands to partner with.
This makes understanding the online visibility that brands get from being associated with F1 even more crucial, as they will be able to understand how brand exposure at the race translates, especially as brands face more competition securing a relationship with F1 teams.
Unexpected talking point
Naturally, the brands running the F1 teams themselves were mentioned considerably. McLaren, boosted by Lando Norris’ victory and the news of Red Bull’s at the time Head of Race Strategy, Will Courtenay joining McLaren as Sporting Director, led with 91,900 mentions. Ferrari and Red Bull followed with 84,900 and 83,900 mentions, respectively.
F1 teams most popular by online search (Photo: Meltwater)
However, the teams were not the most talked about part of the race weekend. That title goes to the entertainment line up, specifically the Korean girl group, BabyMonster.
Meltwater attributes this to how F1 has become viewed as an entertainment event with high-profile musical performances, as much as it is about the race itself. Therefore, headliners get discussed all over the internet. Mentions of BabyMonster in particular skyrocketed from a daily average of 1,070 to 116,000 on September 21 on social media platform X, previously Twitter.
This performance of BabyMonster was given more attention than other headliners, Australian singer Kylie Minogue, and pop band OneRepublic.
The spotlight placed on them might be due to the overall popularity of Korean pop (K-pop) right now. Furthermore, K-pop tends to be discussed and spread online in huge volumes, as their fans tend to be fairly young in their twenties, with an average age of 23, and have a strong online presence. By nature of how those interested in K-pop are digitally active, BabyMonster was well positioned to circulate online.
Winner of brand mentions
Besides entertainment acts and automobile companies, the brand that received the most traction during the race weekend was Singapore Airlines. The company commanded a 54.7% of voice online, in other words, being mentioned in more than half of all F1-related content between September 18th and 24th.
This is likely because Singapore Airlines was the race’s top sponsor. Another contributing factor was a post by Choi Si-Won, a member of K-pop boy group Super Junior, going viral. Choi posted about attending F1 and tagged Singapore Airlines, so when his post got shared — Choi has over 145K followers on Facebook, 8.8 million followers on Instagram and over 7 million followers on X — the Singapore Airlines tag was also disseminated across the web.
Whether this counts as Singapore Airlines itself getting traction is another thing, as the primary focus of this re-posting would be Choi and not the brand. Nevertheless, its hard to dismiss the impact that these online demographics have. F1 has actually gained considerable popularity among a younger and more diverse audience due to the Netflix documentary Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which began in 2019. A survey conducted in 2021 by Autosport, a London magazine focussed on motorsport, revealed that fans were an average age of 32, four years younger than 2017. Female participation had also doubled in the same period of time.
The documentary also attracted fans from the American Market, where F1 previously hadn’t had as much traction in, compared to the other countries that they held races in. A writer for Forbes asserted that F1 used to struggle financially for the US Grand Prix, held in Texas, but between 2018 and 2022, numbers nearly doubled to 440,000.
In other words, digital marketing really is aiding the F1 race itself. There is a possibility that the brands associating with them can also benefit from the increased traction online to expand their consumer base. It is just a matter of how it is leveraged.
Mimrah Mahmood, Vice President, Enterprise (APAC) and Partner at Meltwater Asia-Pacific said: “The surge in excitement for race weekend marks F1 as a contemporary cultural touchpoint. Teams and sponsors are leveraging this momentum, driving engagement and increasing their digital footprint across new demographic segments.”
“Notably, we are starting to see non-F1 related brands jumping into the conversation and developing campaigns around the race weekend, such as Singapore Sports Hub’s Groovedriver Festival. Brands are creatively tapping into the growing excitement surrounding F1, and we can expect to see more trendjacking around this local moment in years to come.”
