Zero F*cks Driven: How an alcohol brand is winning F1

The Formula One Rolex Australian Grand Prix was held almost two weeks ago in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia. Our boy Oscar (and Daniel, I guess) have come and gone, and the final bollards are starting to be removed from the iconic Albert Park circuit. It was another successful spectacle on the global sporting stage. So why have I been compelled to listen to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s record-shattering hip hop inspired musical, Hamilton, on repeat since the event? More specifically, the fifth song from Act II of that musical - The Room Where It Happens??

This is a story about cars, content and cognitive loopholes.?

I’ve spent roughly 53% of my career working in South Melbourne. This means I’ve spent (roughly) 1,687 days driving alongside Melbourne’s iconic Albert Park lake as I commute to and from my chosen place of business. During that time, but more specifically over the last six years, I have witnessed the Australian Grand Prix’s physical presence and infrastructure across the site expand, becoming more extensive, elaborate and sophisticated with each year, catering to larger crowds and playing host to an ever-increasing hype that sweeps the city. As I drive the circuit at 40km/h throughout the month of March, literally watching the event take shape and then deconstructed around me, I find myself revisiting my seventh favourite song from L.M.Miranda’s masterpiece. Whilst The Room Where It Happens may not quite have the gusto of Satisfied, the dramatic intensity of Wait For It or the piercing reality of Stay Alive, thematically it represents for me a question that I have asked myself with increasing intensity and bewilderment over the past six year…

What must it have been like to be in the room when Netflix and/or Liberty Media (owner of F1) pitched the idea of creating the documentary series Formula One: Drive To Survive??

I have no idea whose brainchild prompted the creation of this iconic docuseries, or who weaponised the simple insight that F1 is a sport more about people than cars; but I would give all the Monte Carlo biscuits in Monaco (I presume that’s what they eat) to have been in that room to witness that masterstroke of marketing genius. That decision to commission this groundbreaking content series has played a major (if not single-handed) role in growing F1 revenue from $1.83b in 2018 to $2.57b in 2022. Thanks to the popularity of DTS, TV rights for F1 in the US has increased 17x from $5m annually to an average of $83m. Thanks to the series’ all-access pass and profile raising, F1 team valuations have increased by a massive +276% on average over the course of the series, whilst race attendance has increased by an average of +37% per race. I call this the ‘DTS effect’, and its power is prominently at play in Melbourne, with GP crowd attendance increasing by +80% over the last six years, from 250,000 in 2018 to a record 452,055 patrons in 2024.

Netflix have created a beast. But as Toby Maguire’s uncle Ben says:

“With great (horse) power comes great responsibility”...

...especially when it comes to the brands attaching themselves to this behemoth.??And here’s where things start to get really interesting…

F1 has always been an affluent-leaning sport targeted at the top end of town. But through the ‘DTS effect’, the sport has expanded in such a way that it has captured the attention of new markets, audiences and most profoundly, sponsors. Observing the track signage around the Melbourne circuit this year, there was a singular thread connecting virtually all major sponsors - crypto.com, AWS, Salesforce - clearly F1 is pivoting away from the luxury category and more towards the ‘big tech’ bros. But there is one sponsor that stands out from the rest; a beverage brand that has been riding the ‘DTS effect’ for several years, capturing attention for all the right (and wrong) reasons, giving zero f*cks in the process.

I’m talking, of course, about Heineken.?

Albert Park can be a handy little cut through when traveling from the Melbourne CBD to the South Eastern suburbs. It was on Good Friday, a mere five days after the Melbourne GP, that I found myself driving my family through this picturesque shortcut still peppered with partner brands lining the concrete barriers. Upon noticing Heineken’s unmissable green branding encasing the circumference of the track, my wife turned to me in astonishment (and mild concern) and questioned how an alcohol brand could be the sponsor of such a high speed motorsport? Surely this was a direct violation of advertising codes and a flagrant contradiction to the government’s enduring messaging around road safety? It was with a self-assured smirk and a smugly-raised single eyebrow that I encouraged her to look a little closer, for I too had reacted with the same outrage upon my initial exposure to Heineken’s presence at the race. And there it was, in plain sight. Sitting right next to their logo were the numbers: 0.0.

WHAT A F*CKING GENIUS PIECE OF ADVERTISING CHUTZPAH!!

Of course Heineken, the alcohol brand, cannot sponsor the fastest growing (and moving) sport in the world; but Heineken, the responsible zero percent beverage company encouraging consumers? to “never drink when you drive”, can sponsor this adrenaline-fuelled sport with a crafty, contextually aligned message. Whilst this may appear on the surface to be product-focussed messaging - aligning the utility of an alcohol-free beverage with the consumption restrictions inherent in the motoring environment - it is anything but in the minds of consumers. This is very much an ad for ALL Heineken beer. The secret to their cheeky cognitive loophole is in the deployment of their distinctive brand assets; employing their rich green background, prominent white typeface and iconic red star, Heineken’s coverage around the track serves as one giant f*ck off ad for HEINEKEN the brand, alcoholic or otherwise. Leaning heavily on these traditional brand cues, they can mask and actually subvert the product message, (literally) fast tracking existing neural pathways that have been built over years of exposure to the brand itself.?

And they are activating this careful visual pairing for a very strategic reason.

It has long (and short) been established by the Godfathers of Marketing Science themselves - Les Binet and Peter Field - that a healthy balance between sales activation and brand building is critical to support both short-term and long-term sales growth. But what underpins this iconic squiggly graph (above) is the notion that brand building activity must remain cogent and virtually ‘always on’ to ensure brands consistently build distinctiveness (and a sprinkle of differentiation) in the minds of consumers; this helps to build greater brand meaning and mental availability to supercharge moments of sales activation. It talks to the same age-old tension we have seen in the battle between ‘Brand vs Performance’; unlike Harry Potter and Voldermort, both can (and must) exist concurrently. We are seeing traditionally performance-heavy advertisers like Telstra moving more to an even split between these disciplines, demonstrating an appreciation of the complimentary power of priming activated by consistent brand-focused activity.?????

Heineken are leaning hard into this dichotomy with their F1 alignment. They are not only leveraging their strong brand cues to enhance the positioning of their 0.0% product through this unique sporting environment, but using this same product and partnership as a gateway and access point to build further brand salience for their wider portfolio through the blanketed deployment of their unmistakable brand.?????

The more advertisers understand the complimentary power of product and brand, and how the exploitation of their interrelation can lead to greater brand priming for the long run, the more powerfully they can drive sales activation, survive in a competitive market, and ultimately…wait for it…stay alive.?

Satisfied?