Two marketing directors for F1
While Bernie Ecclestone had long refused to have a marketing director for F1, he had eventually appointed David Campbell. Following the latter's departure, two new marketing directors have just been appointed to lead the F1 marketing department: Michael Payne and Christian Vogt.
The FOM leader, Bernie Ecclestone, has surrounded himself with two new sports-business specialists following David Campbell’s departure from the position of F1 marketing director. According to information from Pitpass, Christian Vogt is an expert in negotiating television rights for major sports events. He draws his experience from his years at FIFA and UEFA (the international and European football federations, respectively) as well as at the IAAF (the international athletics federation). He now takes on the role of marketing director for Formula One.
Nevertheless, it seems that it is the second name which is the most important in this new cycle of appointments: Michael Payne, who has just been named chief marketing advisor for F1. He was at the heart of the world’s biggest sporting event, the Olympic Games. He was the one who created the global sponsorship program implemented by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) for major companies.
This program is proving to be a resounding success since the eleven companies that have subscribed to it pay more than a billion dollars every four years to be able to use the famous Olympic rings. This therefore shows that there is room for growth in this area for F1 since its nine privileged partners (UBS, DHL, LG…) pay “only” 225 million dollars each year to be associated with the sport. Yet, F1 reaches 550 million viewers annually for its 19 or 20 races while the Olympic Games attract around 4 billion viewers over three weeks.
Currently, F1 has not succeeded (or very little) in attracting large companies to the global stage as the Olympics have managed to do, particularly in consumer goods. F1 can clearly do better by structuring its marketing activities and could attract more brands than the current nine. Especially since these 225 million represent only a small portion of an annual revenue of 1.5 billion. This means that circuits and countries are more willing to pay than companies…
Michael Payne gained his first experience in F1 when he left the IOC in 2004. He then became the special advisor to Bernie Ecclestone. He assisted him, notably in negotiations for the television deal that allowed the BBC to regain the rights given to ITV in 2009. Since then, he had been appointed senior strategic advisor to the organizers of the London Olympics.
But even more important than this vast experience, he is a longtime friend of Bernie Ecclestone. Ecclestone states: «Michael is a good friend. He helps us. I need a little help with marketing.» This quality should therefore allow him to maintain this position in the medium term, and possibly be in a very good position to lay claim to the throne that Bernie Ecclestone will leave vacant.
With the participation of RacingBusiness.fr
