Speed past your competition by doing what has never been done before.
Few things are more exhilarating than watching cars speed past you at over 200mph. It’s been said that car racing was invented as soon as the second car was built. So how can you compete in an industry full of turbocharged incumbents?
Today we’re going to learn about how outsiders have been able to breakthrough in Formula One racing. From the mavericks who invented a new kind of car in the 1950s, to how Red Bull Racing turned the entire sport on its head. Oliver Hughes, CMO, Red Bull Racing Honda, joined us and shared how Red Bull does what no one else will, and quite literally laps the competition.
Experience: Doing what nobody else will
Inspiration: Origins of Formula One Racing
Modern Day Execution: Oliver Hughes, CMO, Red Bull Racing Honda
Three Takeaways
Key Quotes
Links
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/redbullracing
__
Thanks to our friends
This podcast is presented by Oracle CX.
Hear more executive perspectives on CX transformation at Oracle.com/cx/perspectives
Ian: In 1958, there wasn’t a lot of diversity in terms of who won Formula one auto races.
Ferrari, Maserati, McLaren, Alfa Romeo.
The few independent race teams that entered a race got the pleasure of watching as Ferrari, Maserati, McLaren, and Alfa Romeo crossed the finish line before them.
Enter: Rob Walker.
Rob was rich. He was the heir to multi-million dollar fortunes on both his mother and his father’s side of the family. He was, however, expected to do something with his life. Which was a problem for Rob because one of his early teachers described him as “academically hopeless.”
He found his passion in life when he discovered cars. He loved everything about them, the mechanical intricacies, the engineering, their sleek appearance, and more than anything, going fast.
Rob wasn’t able to race himself, his wife told him she would only marry him if he promised to never race again. So he founded a racing team.
It might seem like an easy thing for a multi-millionaire to buy his way into Formula One, but unfortunately for Rob, the car manufacturers who dominated the F1 races jealously guarded their secrets.
That was the reason that no independent race team had ever won a Formula One grand prix race.
But Rob was determined to change that.
He started by hiring a legendary driver. Stirling Moss was known as one of Britain’s best drivers. He was also a kindred spirit to Rob: An abysmal student who found solace in racing. Also like Rob, he came from outside the usual hierarchy. Stirling was Jewish, and was often bullied for his outsider status in England.
Together, they were able to do well. But they still couldn’t win one of the major grand prix races.
It was time to start thinking outside the box.
It started with a Cooper engine. Compared to the powerful Ferrari and Maserati engines that they would be going against, it was pitiful. But the Rob Walker team had an ace up their sleeve.
Their engine was mounted on the back of their car. Others had attempted the trick but it was still considered controversial and unproven. Just that year, Enzo Ferrari had dismissed the innovation, saying "The horse pulls the cart, it doesn't push it along with its nose."
They weren’t the first to attempt this innovation, but they would be one of the first to utilize it on the biggest stage.
It was enough to bring the Rob Walker team some victories on the circuit. But if they wanted a grand prix, they realized it was going to take something extra special.
At the Argentine Grand Prix in 1958, the Rob Walker team made their move.
As the Maserati and Ferrari teams changed their tires, the Rob Walker car kept going. Stirling Moss was opening up a multi-lap lead over his opponents. The pit crew began to complain loudly about the state of the tires and how it would take forever to change them when he did eventually stop.
Finally, with only ten laps left to go, the other teams realized that they were being deceived. Their drivers picked up the pace, and raced to catch Moss.
As they got closer, Moss’s tires started to disintegrate underneath him. In a sport where the participants were not guaranteed to come home alive, Moss’s car was now shaking and sliding beneath him on every turn.
He drove cautiously, just hoping to make it to the end, and constantly looking over his shoulder to see if it would be enough. And as he neared the finish line, he realized it might not be enough.
What happened at the finish? Stay tuned, and buckle up, because today we’re exploring Formula One, and the power of doing what has never been done before.
Mackey: Welcome to Often Imitated, a podcast about remarkable experiences from the past, and how they inspire people to create great customer experiences today.
This episode is all about doing what nobody else will. How Formula One turned into an international obsession, and how you can make your product one too. In this episode, we talk to Olly Hughes, CMO of Redbull Racing, about how they go leaps and bounds ahead of every other F1 team.
Often Imitated is brought to you by the generous support of our friends at Oracle. Make every interaction matter with Oracle Advertising and CX. Connect all your data and empower your entire business to deliver exceptional customer experiences from acquisition…to retention…and everything in between. Learn more at oracle.com/cx.
Ian: As Stirling Moss rounded the final corner, Ferrari driver Luigi Musso was hot on his heels, and catching up fast. Moss was doing everything in his power to simply hold the car together.
Finally - agonizingly - the Rob Walker car sputtered across the finish line. Only 2.7 seconds before Luigi Musso and the Ferrari car. The team had done it, they became the first - and only - independent team to win a grand prix race, and the first car with a rear-mounted engine to do so.
Soon, everyone was copying their innovation. Within a year, there were no cars left utilizing a front-engine design.
For a long time, the Rob Walker team were the only outsiders to come into Formula One and actually win anything.
That is, until the Red Bull team came along.
// For those of you who are not familiar with Red Bull racing, yes that is Red Bull the energy drink founded in 1987. You might be wondering why an energy drink company has a racing team. The answer? Red Bull does everything differently.
Red Bull racing has managed to do the seemingly impossible, building sustained success on the race track including 65 victories since 2005. They have also managed to cultivate a massive following in a sport with longstanding teams and entrenched fan bases.
They knew that in order to break through with fans, they would need to do things differently from a marketing perspective. The man charged with that is Olly Hughes, CMO of Red Bull Racing.
Olly: So we are 100% owned by red bull, the drinks business. Um, and I guess red bull has asked because they do marketing very differently to everyone else. You know, they, they look at the world and say, how do we connect with people globally? How do we connect with anywhere? And the best way they do that is by thinking about what their brand stands for, which is about giving people, wings, giving wings, to ideas and people , um, and then putting their name behind something and then living that, that brand ethos.
So red bulls , very, very first athlete that they kind of. I guess worked with endorse imported. Their product was Gerhard Berger, an Austrian F1 driver, and our owners are F1 fans. So, you know, when they had the means and the ability to do it , they, they bought an F1 team. So they purchased what was then Jaguar racing or Ford.
Um, and they set up red bull racing and then suddenly you've got red bull formula, one team competing against the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes and other well-known car manufacturers. And, you know, people are looking up and down the paddock. It doesn't say what the hell does an energy drink doing it? So, um, we we've been here, you know, trying to do things differently for 17 years now.
So we're pretty, pretty lucky actually that we are one of the only sports that's not only global, but actually gets to compete globally. And by that, I mean, we go to 23 countries a year and we race in 23 countries. So we have a large fan base, approximately 90 million fans around the world that follow us
Ian: Initially, fans were skeptical of Red Bull’s dedication to the sport. According to Olly, fan trust didn’t materialize just because they showed up. It had to be earned.
Olly: I've only been here for, like I said, four years of the journey, but , um, you know, back in the early days, apparently it was like, we were just the jokers. We were walking into the, into the F1 paddocks all around the world and people are like, these guys throw great parties, but what, you know, what are they doing here?
Um, so we've kind of came a bit of a, I guess, a sort of, a bit of a joke team. Don't get me wrong. We always took the sport. Seriously. We were, we were building, we weren't in recruiting good people. We were building facilities that could compete at the front of the grid and F1 and. And in 2010, we won our first constructor and drivers world championships.
And we won three more after that. So we actually have eight world championships now in the 16 years that we've been in the sport. So we went very quickly from being the jokers, you know, and took seriously to being, hang on, they're having fun and they're winning. That's not supposed to happen. Um, and ever since then, we've been a top three teams.
So, you last year we came second in the, in the world championships. Um, well, one race in and we, we should won that race really, but we, we came second in that race. So we're very much hoping to take the fight and, and, you know, w we're we're about doing things differently. Like we, we are dead serious and fully committed and fully professional race outfit, but we also believe that there should be some fun and we should be connecting with our fans in a fun way.
And, and, and, and just not taking yourself so seriously.
Ian: Having a great team is critical, because they can remain focused on the customer, or in Olly’s case, the fans. Olly told us how to craft a truly great fan experience.
Olly: like any sport, your fan is your oxygen. If you haven't got fans, you haven't got a sport. So for me, I'm always thinking, what can I do to improve my fans experience? Like how can I make formula one, not only more interesting to our current fans, but how do I make formula one accessible and interesting to new fans?
So they really are at the center of everything that me and my team are doing every single day. They are, they are 100% our focus.
it's been very much ingrained in my head for, I guess my entire marketing career that you have to design, whether it's a product or a marketing camp has to be around the fan base, both the current and the future fan base.
So yeah, you know, at red bull and red bull is the ultimate, you know, they're the inventors of content marketing. Let's be honest. They never really did it before, before they did it. So we're always sort thinking about, you know, What can we do to stand out from the crowd? And, you know, we've done some crazy things.
Like we're the only F1 team to even think about, Hey, why don't we take an F1 car and run it on a ski slope and kids fall and put snow chains on it? Or why don't we do donuts on the helipad, in the Burj Al Arab in, in Abu Dhabi or , um, or why don't we even take it to the 1000 museum tower in , um, in Miami, we did donuts on that building.
Most people think you're totally crazy. Why would you take a multi-million dollar car and do that kind of thing? But for us, it's all about we do it because no one else would, and it makes us stand out and it makes us connect with the world. It's that simple.
Ian: Olly and Redbull Racing are all about bringing experiences to the next level.
Back in the early days of racing, there was a famous saying coined at Ford, that you “win on Sunday and sell on Monday”.
Ultimately Red Bull wants Red Bull Racing... to win races. And winning races means millions of eyeballs on Red Bull, and more people buying Red Bull, maintaining the that #1 energy drink in the world title.
But Red Bull Racing doesn’t just win on the track. They dominate digital and social channels with some of the best content in the world. And that works 24/7.
Olly: Totally understand that sometimes you are doing things which are, you know, not necessarily well, but everyone needs it. Um, in our world, not everybody needs it, but we want everyone to want it. So we need to make sure that when they watch. You know, or interact with our content or interact with our marketing and they go,
Wow. They're really cool. You know, that I want to, how do I be part of that? How do, how do I, how do I get involved with red bull and how does, how does, you know, if I drink red bull, does that make me feel like that?
Ian: Olly and his team have realized that in order to win, they need to be wiling to do what has never been done before. And when you hear about the stunts that they pull - you realize why no one else has done it.
Olly: anyone who follows the sport knows the, one of kind of. Key areas where red bull is really, really consistently phenomenal is pit stops. And the pitstop in formula one is like the ultimate metaphor for teamwork.
You have 20 guys who take four tires off and put four tires on, and we do it in under 1.9 seconds. And we consistently do it in under 1.9 seconds. If you just think about, you know, if you ever change a tire on your car and you think about changing all four of them in under two seconds, it's absolutely crazy.
We're able to have a car come into the pit lane, you know, like 80 miles an hour stop very quickly on, off out. And because we're so good at that, we got the opportunity last year to work with the Russian military. And he said, Hey, what about coming in? What about coming up into the edge of the atmosphere?
And we'll do one of those zero G flights. And let's see how quick you guys are changing tires. When you're in a zero G environment. So again, most people go that is just crazy or all we're going to do is throw up, but our guys totally embraced it. And we went up into zero G and we did a zero G pitstop and create a lot of content around it.
So for us, it was a totally relevant, but totally crazy thing to do. And it gets us into new places and gets new eyeballs
Ian: Crazy ideas and innovations are great when they work. But sometimes they’re just crazy. How do you know when an idea is crazy good or just crazy? To Olly, it all comes down to measurement and metrics.
Olly: I always sort of think there was always got to be a measurement right around everything. You've always got to kind of look at it and go, did it work? What were the metrics for success when you were going into it? But I think, you know, in any good marketing, it just feels right. Like if you, if you go into something and plan everything around metrics, like this is what the data is telling us, and this is what we should be doing.
And you end up by killing the creative process to me. And I think ultimately if the creative is brilliant and the idea is exceptional and unique, then somehow you can craft that to get the metrics that you want.
Ian: As you come up with exceptional and unique ideas, your competition will notice.
Olly: in every project that we do, it's like. Yes, we should try and be unique. Yes, we should try and be the first people will try and copy us, but we ultimately need to do it in a way that even if people do copy us, it doesn't make a difference because we did it better. And we did it first. And we see that now, like we, you know, it is one of those moments of flattery when you see your competition imitating what you do.
But like we see it every day that we're able to go out there and we're able to do very creative marketing and some of the other teams like Ferrari or Mercedes or McLaren, et cetera, will also try and do something similar. And some of them do a brilliant job of it. Don't get me wrong, but they're never going to be red bull.
Ian: What Olly says here is critical. You need to have the audacity to do it in the first place. And make sure that you do it so well, it can’t be re-done. Although it might be often imitated.
And a key to developing those crazy ideas is to continue learning more about your customers and what they want.
Olly: Come on totally redefining. And re-scope Epping. What does a great tech stack look like and how do we deliver the ultimate fan experience using the tools that we've got at red bull racing and the technology that Oracle can provide us. Um, and that's really the journey we've just started. And hopefully during the next weeks months, our fans will start to feel and see that.
But ultimately it is about understanding who our fans are. So when I mentioned earlier in the, in the podcast, we have roughly 90 million fans, how do we turn the 90 million into, from unknown to knowns? And the more we know about you, what does that mean in terms of how personalized the journey needs to be?
What, you know, what platforms are you on? What are you most interested in? Like if you are, if we do. Know merchandise you mentioned earlier. And merchandise to me, if it's done properly is a brilliant experience, but if I'm following a sports brand and all they're doing is pushing merchandise at me, that is super annoying.
So what I want to do is I want to understand more about you as an individual. And if I know that you always buy a cap or a t-shirt or a piece of merchandise every season, I know you always buy before the first race, or if I know you've already bought it, I'm not going to push any more merchandise ads at you.
So what I want to do is I want to show up where you want me to show up and I want to not be there when you don't want me to be there. And I want to give you what you want to see, and I'm not going to push you stuff you don't want to know about. So that's, that's ultimately how we're approaching it.
Ian: It is a never ending pursuit of meaningful engagement. Testing, iterating, and using data to inform those decisions.
Olly: So you've got to constantly kind of put your fan at the forefront or your customer at the forefront, I think is exactly the same thing. So to do that, you've got to understand them more. So either you've got the tools or the technology, or you go and do the research, but you have to keep understanding what your fan wants, what your customer wants and where they want it, how they want it, and constantly be using that as your sort of North star on how you're planning everything.
Um, and I think there's any marketeer or commercial person. You can start looking at it and going the data's all positive sales are growing or fan base is growing. So we must be successful. And I think that is one of the most dangerous things you can do in any organization. Yes. That is brilliant to have in it.
And it, and it helps you to kind of get more budget to reinvest, but ultimately you need to constantly be looking at yes, it's growing, but what is our strategy to keep it growing? And how do we kind of keep getting ahead of it and never get complacent and always continue to innovate and think innovatively about what is next?
What is next? What is my, what do we think my customer would want? What do we think my fan will want? And also where are the new fans and where are the new customers? Because at some point your fan gets life changes. They have kids then have time to follow you anymore, or customer preference changes. And you got to think, where are the new people all the time as well?
So I'll just say never be complacent because complacency ultimately leads to failure.
Ian: Whether it’s designing a car or designing a cx, there is enormous power in doing what has never been done be. In your industry, that might not be something as cool as doing a pit stop in zero gravity.
But as Olly taught us, it needs to be exceptional and unique. Something that makes your competitors jealous. Because doing what has never been done is a winning formula.
If you can’t think of something to do, or can’t get an idea off the ground, drink a Red Bull. I hear it gives you wings.
This podcast is brought to you by the generous support of our friends at Oracle. Make every interaction matter with Oracle Advertising and CX. Connect all your data and empower your entire business to deliver exceptional customer experiences from acquisition…to retention…and everything in between. Learn more at oracle.com/cx.
This is your host, Ian Faison, CEO of Caspian Studios. thank you for listening to another episode of Often Imitated. If you like what you’re hearing, tell one friend. This podcast was narrated by me, Ian Faison and produced by Mackey Wilson, Ezra Bakker Trupiano, and Ben Wilson. You can learn more about our team at CaspianStudios.com