This weekend’s British Grand Prix was a historic one, marking 75 years of Method 1 at Silverstone Circuit. It can even be remembered for McLaren’s Lando Norris clinching his first house victory in entrance of a roaring crowd following a wet, high-drama race.
Off the monitor, supercar maker and longtime F1 sponsor McLaren marked one other milestone: 20 years of partnership with hospitality big Hilton.
The enduring relationship, a rarity in advertising, has advanced alongside the methods of each legacy manufacturers, their chief advertising officers (CMOs) advised ADWEEK.
Evolving Collectively
Since partnering in 2005, the sponsorship advanced from what McLaren Racing CMO, Louise McEwen, known as “passive hospitality”—company bins and logos—to completely immersive fan experiences.
After McEwen’s promotion in 2024, Hilton CMO Mark Weinstein mentioned the alliance turned extra “fan ahead.”
As an example, to mark the twentieth anniversary, the pair launched a “Keep Like McLaren” hospitality expertise at Hilton’s Trafalgar St. James Resort in London. Working till July 20, the activation options two rooms in McLaren’s signature papaya orange: one stuffed with driver memorabilia; the opposite with racing simulators, a pit-wall station, and a non-public bar.
Extras embody in-room completely happy hours, signature cocktails, branded NutriBullets, plush robes, Molton Brown toiletries, and McLaren swag like Lego kits and sun shades.
The marketing campaign spans each manufacturers’ social media presence, with success measured in bookings and engagement. The larger aim, although, is translating shared values into cultural relevance and future-proofing each manufacturers.
“We’ve grown collectively on this respect,” McEwen mentioned. “We’re not afraid to make errors so long as we be taught from them.”
They’ve additionally created extra social content material that includes drivers, together with a livestream of Norris practising yoga in a Hilton suite and a cheeky advert that includes Oscar Piastri’s pre-race routine.
McLaren’s Cultural Reboot
Method 1 is having a second, and amid its shift into the mainstream, McLaren Racing has been by itself journey “defrost the model,” McEwen mentioned.
Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive has sparked a surge in U.S viewership and attendance at F1 races across the globe since 2018. Per Nielsen Sports activities, Method 1 now has 826.5 million followers worldwide, up 90 million from 2023.
In June, Brad Pitt’s F1 topped field workplaces, grossing $144 million globally in its opening weekend.
“McLaren was a vessel for different individuals’s manufacturers,” defined McEwen. “However amid this new fandom and progress, out of the blue we’re a model in our personal proper within the sport.”
As McLaren rides a cultural excessive, its efficiency on the monitor has returned to type after a shedding streak.
In December 2024, it clinched its first Constructors’ Championship since 1998, with six wins and 21 podiums behind the dominant MCL38. This season, the momentum has stored constructing, capped by Lando Norris’ historic British GP victory.
Towards this backdrop, McLaren has embraced a extra inclusive advertising technique and reassessed the way it engages followers, McEwen mentioned.
As the primary F1 group to land on TikTok, it has amassed 6.7 million followers and 200 million likes with a mixture of race-day celebrations, storage banter, and content material that spotlights girls engineers and mechanics.
Per F1’s personal knowledge, girls now account for 3 in 4 new followers, with almost half skewing Gen Z. Manufacturers together with Charlotte Tilbury and Tommy Hilfiger are already responding to this development by investing in motorsports, and McLaren has inked offers with trend manufacturers together with Abercrombie & Fitch and Reiss to verify it’s on the “entrance foot” of inviting new supporters in, McEwan mentioned.
Now, the marketer is targeted on rising fan advocacy together with Hilton, and ensuring that McLaren’s distinct papaya orange hue reveals up in additional “surprising” locations.
Hilton’s Return to Relevance
When Weinstein displays on Hilton’s 105-year historical past, he sees an organization born in cultural moments. “Our founder talked about our position on this planet to fill the earth with the sunshine of hospitality,” he mentioned.
From internet hosting Elizabeth Taylor at grand openings to John Lennon writing “Think about” on Hilton stationery, the model was as soon as synonymous with cultural relevance.
“Someplace alongside the best way, you turn into a mature model that’s performing very well on the prime of your sport, however perhaps lose slightly little bit of your cultural relevance,” Weinstein admitted.
When Covid-19 disrupted journey, Hilton refocused on delivering high-quality experiences by way of design, expertise, and repair.
Since 2022, this has manifested in Hilton’s international “For the Keep” model platform, which seeks to place the resort keep again on the coronary heart of journey amid stiff competitors from platforms like Airbnb. The marketing campaign was developed by TBWAWorldwide with media planning and shopping for from iProspect.
Together with a social listening marketing campaign rooted in “saving” journey disasters, bodily “Keep Like…” experiences such because the one it constructed with McLaren have performed a significant position in its model reset. Different themed suites have included one designed by Hilton household heiress and multi-hyphenate Paris Hilton, as effectively ones impressed by Depraved and The Barbie Film.
For Weinstein, partnerships like McLaren’s are essential to reconnect Hilton with new audiences.
“The most effective partnerships are those the place you could have contracts which are extraordinarily sophisticated and detailed, however you set them within the backside drawer and by no means take a look at them once more, since you simply belief one another, imagine in one another.”
Liz Rutgersson, CEO of iProspect North America, which works with Hilton, mentioned the sponsorship reveals the worth of long-term partnerships which are transformational, not transactional.
“It takes a daring, courageous marketer to take a position for long-term influence,” she mentioned.
