“It now feels like coming to a pop or DJ concert” Jamie Reigle on revamping the entire Formula E experience in 2023
Formula E CEO Jamie Reigle is optimistic about the brand revamp of the sport in the future and highlighted some of the changes they have made to the events. The Canadian spoke to Sportskeeda in Mexico during the season opener, explaining the changes made to the guest and fan experience.
Asked by Sportskeeda if Formula E needed better brand positioning and marketing digitally, Reigle replied:
“Yeah absolutely. I mean if you look outside here this year it’s a totally fresh brand. So we have completely repositioned our brand architecture. If you look closely, blue, which is our racing cool color scheme, and culture which is purple and yellow and pink, so that is really intentionally (changed). If you’d come to the event last year, it felt like cold, in my opinion.”
“This (2023) feels like you could be coming to a pop concert, you could be coming to a DJ festival. You’re not just coming to a car race. By the way, you’re going to see Nervo tomorrow, they are going to play at 4 (pm). Supposedly they are two Australian DJs who are incredibly popular and are going to play the after-show tomorrow. So that’s us trying to fuse motorsport with that cultural element. But it’s not just about doing more on Instagram, it needs to be fundamentally embedded in the guest experience or fan experience.”
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#MexicoCityEPrix https://t.co/Le8FuBiA4D
According to Reigle, the series has been reorganized with its fan and guest experience, including DJs and music concerts, to collectively evolve into a better Formula E event experience. However, the Canadian felt the sporting format changes were more important than the promotion of the sport digitally.
Highlighting the changes to their colorful theme in Mexico, the Formula E CEO explained that the event has been revamped in terms of brand positioning and enhancing its appeal, but agreed more can be done to promote the sport globally. Certain about a fresher outlook and better philosophy adopted by the electric series, Reigle felt the series had leaped forward in its current season.
Explaining the changes needed in Formula E, Reigle added:
“I, ultimately at the base, believe that if you don’t have a good sporting proposition, then we should be a concert company and there are plenty of those out there and that’s not who we are, right? So we are trying to walk that line, the sport is really important and the question is can we present a fresher and more optimistic future? I think you are going to start to see us do that with the events.”
Formula E CEO reveals heavy investment into digitally revamping the sport's image
Despite being focused on growing the live audience at Formula E events, CEO Jamie Reigle revealed that the sport has invested heavily in producing better content digitally. For season 9, they have launched a new website and app and are focused on producing better content to promote the sport to a younger audience on other digital platforms. The Canadian revealed that their live audience has doubled in the last three years, which is an important metric to measure the growth of the sport.
Explaining their fresh approach to revamping their digital strategy, the Formula E CEO said:
“Everything else around that the social media, the digital stuff- we’ve launched a new app this week, a new website, new digital platform. That truly helps us target a younger audience. I think big brands, big sponsors, big manufacturers still want us to be on TV. There’s not much of a substitute for live events or big screen but clearly that digital engagement is what we are looking at pretty closely.”
“We are investing pretty heavily on the depth of the content that we produce, we are doing TikTok shows, a bunch of other stuff we didn’t a couple of years ago. Just trying to figure out how you create more entry points for and then hopefully you can grow them to the point where you can get them to sit down for an hour and watch the whole race.”
Great to see fans enjoying the @Allianz Fan Village at the #MexicoCityEPrix! 🇲🇽 https://t.co/AQGpnd1myQ
The Formula E boss stressed the importance of their live audience, saying:
“The piece that is really encouraging and kind of gets lost in this whole debate is our live audience. And our live audience has been up more than 2X in the last three years. When you say exponential, I wish we were growing exponentially, it is not quite that fast. Our live audience is way up and that for me is the most important metric. That’s the one when I tell my team to not worry, we are doing fine, it’s that live audience.”
Mexico's season opener saw a record audience of approximately 40,000 people that filled the colossal grandstands of the Autodromos Hermanos Rodriguez circuit. Meanwhile, with the Hyderabad street circuit added to its calendar, Formula E becomes the first motorsport event to arrive on Indian shores since the departure of F1 in 2013. It will be interesting to see the live audience they draw in a country that has not had an international motorsport event in a decade, and is one of F1’s key new markets.