Ecclestone does not want to target the young audience and will not regret the small teams
Bernie Ecclestone spoke about the question of attracting a younger audience to F1. According to him, it is not the right target.
For Bernie Ecclestone, Formula 1 should not target a young audience because sponsors in F1 would not aim for a younger generation.
Trying to attract younger fans would be a waste of time: « I am not interested in tweets, Facebook or any of that nonsense, » he stated for a sister publication of Autosport, Campaign Asia-Pacific. « I tried to think about it but in any case, I’m too old-fashioned. I can’t see any interest in it. And, I don’t know what the so-called “young generation” really wants. What is it? »
Asked whether there was really no interest in attracting a younger audience, the president of FOM said: « If you have a brand you want to place in front of a few hundred million people, I can easily do that for you on television. Now you’re telling me that I need to find a channel for 15-year-olds to watch Formula 1 because someone wants to put a new brand in front of them? They are not going to be interested for a single moment. »
« Young children will see the Rolex brand, but will they go and buy one? They can’t. Or our other sponsor, UBS: kids don’t care about the bank. They don’t have enough money to put in the damn banks anyway. That’s what I think. I don’t know why people want to attract the young generation. Why do they want to? Is it to sell them something? Most of these kids have no money. I’d rather attract the 70-year-old guy who has plenty of money. So, there’s no point in trying to reach these kids because they’re not going to buy any of the products here, and if marketers target this audience, then maybe they’ll have to advertise for Disney. »
F1 will not regret the small teams
Before the announcement of Caterham’s attendance in Abu Dhabi, partly thanks to the crowdfunding operation launched about ten days ago, Bernie Ecclestone explained that if these back-of-the-grid teams were to disappear—Marussia has notably ceased all activity—no one would miss them, making an unusual link with Oscar Pistorius, the handicapped sprinter: « No one will miss the two teams because they are not top teams; they are only known because of their problems. If you want to be recognized, you have to accomplish something. This poor guy in South Africa [Oscar Pistorius], for example, became more interesting because of what happened to him [his homicide trial, editor’s note] than when he was winning gold medals. He won medals and afterward, no one remembered him. »
