WHAT CAN SPORTS TEAMS LEARN FROM THE SUCCESS OF MCLAREN'S DIGITAL COLLECTIBLES?

According to Unofficial Partner 's Richard Gillis , the “sports marketing industry is a copycat machine”. If that's the case, as the F1 season gears up for launch next week, expect a number of teams to 'take inspiration' from McLaren’s Web3 23/23 initiative.

Recognised as a pioneering case study in Web3 sports marketing, McLaren’s digital collectible series offered fans the chance to claim ‘digital posters’ from each of the 23 races across the 2023 season. Collect, own and if you're lucky, win stuff.

And it proved hugely popular.

Over 3 million race collectibles were minted and over 500,000 new fans registered with McLaren. That’s a hefty, active audience to flow through the team’s ‘marketing funnel’.

Hands up. I’m biased. I developed and managed this for McLaren Racing for Max Wolfe and Daniel Kingston and Sunil Singhvi for sponsor Tezos, on behalf of web3 specialists Capital Block Timothy Mangnall and Tom Hardstaff .

Apart from a license to 'humblebrag', it’s given me insight into how web3 initiatives can resonate with fans, and the opportunities it opens up for sports teams in the future.

So let me share some predictions on features I'd anticipate we'll see as the starting flag waves to signal the new F1 season.

1. Free for fans, paid for by sponsors

Teams take note.

McLaren didn’t pay a bean to develop its ’23/23’ collectibles programme.

They offered brand partner Tezos the opportunity build the programme and showcase its technology as part of its sponsorship activation. Smart, huh?

This brand-funded approach offers teams new ways for its partners to activate their sponsorships, whilst removing the need to charge fans.

A win-win-win for all stakeholders.

• For fans: It’s free. It’s cool. You own team memorabilia. You can collect and if the stars align, win

• For brands: It’s an innovative way to bring your sponsorship to life, drive product sampling and brand engagement
• For teams: A means to deliver value for its partners whilst attracting new audiences from new markets, cross-selling team products and driving community engagemen

Will fans pay? Some teams may create limited edition ‘paid-for’ micro-drop programmes for super-fans, but the speculative era of ‘buy and trade’ NFTs has run its race.

Expect teams’ season-long programmes to be free, with long term fan engagement the primary aim.

2. Get the product right, inspired by the team’s brand heritage

Too many collectibles feel throwaway with product design an after-thought.

If fans smell that this is simply a 'cash-grab sponsor activation' rather than an authentic product, it will fail. The product may be free for fans, but if they feel cheap, you’re onto a loser.

The 23/23 collectibles looked good, felt cool to own with each design inspired by the location, the team’s history at that track and McLaren's brand DNA. And the element of gamification drove on-going collection across the season.

So, put the time into product strategy and invest in your creative team.

We were lucky to work with a visionary creative director in Roberto D'Andria and an inspired motion graphics designer in Chris Zloty who hit the target with his animations as often as his compatriot Robert Lewandowski.

Expect teams in '24 to raise the design bar from throw-away commodity assets to premium collectibles that unlock new value.

3. Create scarcity to drive demand

Surely it’s counter-intuitive to restrict access?

If you want fans to collect, wouldn’t you let them claim the collectibles when they want. The more fans opportunities for fans to collect, the more that will?Not necessarily....

That defeats part of the challenge of collecting. Of battling to complete your collection as I did in my younger days collecting Panini stickers of football players, consistently finding the Polish right back, Marek Dziuba in my endless purchases of packs, rather than the enigma, the legendary Zico.

For 23/23, each collectible was available for just 72 hours around each race weekend. That’s it.

That limited supply period drove fans to act. And that cadence drove repeat visits and loyalty. (And if you needed, a visit to the secondary market to buy ones you missed).

4. Deliver digital ownership with real world utility

Digital ownership is great in itself, but utility is what brings this to life, and at least right now, tying ownership to real world products and experiences is what fans want.

Complete your collection and unlock access to McLaren swag, limited edition signed posters, or a chance to win a race experience with the drivers Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri. That proved to be highly compelling for fans.

In 2024, expect teams to offer more prizes, more often, to keep fans engaged across the whole season, with exclusive merchandise that can be cross-sold to this hyper-connected fan-base.

Maybe not this season, but surely next, teams will build on the trojan horse of digital collectibles to create a more holistic loyalty programme that rewards fans for any team touchpoints: purchases, engagement, social promotion or any interactions with the team or their sponsors.

5. Inject storytelling that drives community

As we built last year’s programme the detail that got me most excited were the ‘easter eggs’ we inserted into each poster design. A series of hidden icons embedded into the imagery - like a banknote with story references woven from McLaren’s successes at that track in the past.

Look closely across the series and you’ll see subtle references to Senna’s Monaco masterclass in the wet in 84, Mika’s Lap 40 Schumacher overtake in Spa in 2000, or that final race, final lap overtake by Hamilton in Sao Paulo to win the 2008 F1 championship. Yes, that one. History that means something to fans.

Indeed, test your own encyclopaedic knowledge of McLaren in Melbourne by spotting the 6 easter eggs hidden below...

Why so important?

i) It's crucial to get your hardcore fans ‘on-side' with authentic product development that earns their respect. This group of fans can be incredibly influential and their social endorsement can make or break perception of a new product that they may be instinctively skeptical of.

ii) it drives community engagement, discussion and by inspiring fans to become ambassadors, low-cost promotion. That in turns drives success.

After McLaren’s achievements in building its community, expect teams to follow suit with dedicated, token-gated Discord initiatives an integral part of their 2024 plans.

6. Unleash Fan Co-Creation

Take a leap out of Nike's .Swoosh playbook (history tell us these guys know what they are doing) and begin involving fans in the creative process.

Encourage fans, for example, to propose the equivalent of those ‘easter-egg stories’ themselves, to design the race collectibles, or to create designs for spin-off merchandise.

Yes, it’s scary for a rights holder to give the keys to the fans, but as content creation becomes democratised with new AI-driven tools launched more often than a Max Versatappen victory, fans will soon yearn to ‘drive the design car, rather than just spectate’.

And if teams want to harness their fans as creators and ambassadors, they will need to 'lighten up on rights', and provide stems of content, or basic assets, and guide fans to create for a common goal.

Sponsor partners might chuckle at the thought, as many find it hard enough to get their professionally produced content assets approved by teams right now….but expect, with guardrails, teams to soon start to involve fans in the creative process.

This season, surely at least one team will embrace fan co-creation in their Web3 programme this year? Take a look at Nitto ATP Tennis initiative led by Mark Epps . It is a great example of the starting point of this type of approach. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/tennis-web3-opportunity-mark-epps/?trk=pulse-article

7. Dynamic, personalised narratives that increase emotional value

Rather than just have your collectible as a static piece of memorabilia you associate with that race, how much more compelling would it be if it was personalised to you, or dynamically updated based on data.

So, fans can predict who will win, when overtakes will happen, to win prizes.

Or insert their own images to commemorate the first time they attended a race with their mates or watched a race with their dad at home. And, in the process, create memories stored within memorabilia that makes the sport mean more.

Surely a couple of teams will also take inspiration from Tareq Nazlawy 's innovative use of actual race data to dynamically create the designs for Trace's collectible memorabilia around the last races of 2023?

8. Keep it simple

People don’t need to know what the technology is.

They just want to know what it delivers.

How it benefits them.

Mention of crypto, blockchain, NFTs and the like, turns them off.

So, don’t. And don't forget to create an intuitive on-boarding process.

It’s not that complicated.

Get it right, keep it simple, and you can open the door for these new initiatives to reach a far wider audience than just hitting the hyper tech-savvy.

So, next week, the new F1 season begins.

Many teams will be hoping they've found ways to use technology to gain a competitive advtantage to catch Max Verstappen and Red Bull on track.

Off-track, a different battle will play out. Who will get it right to embrace innovation and rival McLaren’s Web3 plans in 2024?

What do you think? How do you see teams using Web3 this season?

What should they be doing?

Love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

And, if you made it this far, you're probably interested in the topic. To learn more, I’d highly recommend watching/listening to Pet Berisha 's Sporting Crypto podcast with McLaren Web 3 head honcho Max Wolfe filmed in the middle of the 2023 season. It’s gold. I’ll insert a link in the comments below.

#web #f1 #innovation #fanengagement #brandpartnerships