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In their debut Formula 1 season, Cadillac’s livery reveal put the team on same path as F1 in terms of capitalizing on an under-tapped market.
Whilst the majority of F1 teams have enough fan support already that their livery reveals can go down the routes of either a simple image or video, or a corporate event paying homage to the sponsors who make a team’s participation in F1 possible, Cadillac is brand new to the game. What's more, they're repping a part of the world that has been less visible to and under-invested in by F1 until recently. But with the way that F1 has been cultivating the US recently, Cadillac is appearing at the perfect time to grab hold of an attractive audience that is both growing and local for the team.
From the moment they announced that they would be joining the F1 grid, Cadillac has leaned into their US heritage, marketing themselves as America’s team in a sport largely dominated by European automakers.
“We didn’t come into Formula 1 to look like every other team, to copy what McLaren is doing or what Mercedes is doing,” said Cadillac F1 CEO Dan Towriss in an interview with the Athletic. “We want to bring our own authentic and unique approach to that, which is going to be very much a distinctly American brand, by leaning into that entertainment aspect.”
This concept stayed at the forefront of Towriss’s mind as he thought about the best possible platform for the team’s livery reveal. He recalled discussing it with his wife, Cassidy Towriss, one night over dinner, asking her, “What’s the most American thing we can do to reveal the livery for the first-ever Cadillac Formula 1 livery?”
The answer? One of America’s biggest entertainment spectacles of the year: a Super Bowl commercial.
“The Super Bowl audience is huge,” said Towriss on CNBC’s Money Movers. “It's also a cultural moment in sport, so it was a perfect place to introduce America's newest team in Formula 1.”
The commercial itself paid homage to an iconic moment of American history: the 1960s ‘space race’ that resulted in the moon landing. President John F Kennedy's famous moonshot speech plays in the background as the car comes together, before taking off into the distance, with the words ‘The Mission Begins’ emblazoned on the screen. It plays to a level of emotion and patriotism that is seldom seen in livery launches. A great contrast is Haas, America’s first F1 team to join the grid in 30 years, which regularly puts out straightforward videos or even just rendered images of their car for their reveals.
As a brand new team entering a sport known for its high price tag, this was an expensive move. Cadillac likely spent somewhere between $15-25 million USD on the campaign, the final product of which was just a minute-long video.
But the national audience their commercial targeted might just be worth the hefty investment. The team’s livery reveal aired during the Super Bowl halftime show, which was likely watched by roughly 130 million people across the US—a massive number of eyes.
In addition to the commercial, Cadillac also installed an activation in New York City’s Times Square, featuring a massive glass box in which the physical F1 car was revealed. Times Square is perhaps one of the most recognizable locations in the US, and gets up to 330,000 pedestrians walking through it daily, making this another impressive means of catching the attention of potential fans.
What’s more, this also means that Cadillac is putting itself front and center in a market that F1 as a whole is hoping to expand into. F1 CEO, Stefano Domenicali, has described the USA as a “key growth market” for the sport, and in the past four years, the F1 calendar has grown to include three American races: the Miami, United States and Las Vegas Grands Prix.
“Certainly with the three races that are happening in the US, the US is a great growth market.” echoed Towriss to CNBC anchors. “And so certainly that's again why we chose the Super Bowl. We want to reach out to the American fans and let them know that there's a new American team and we're 30 days from the first race.”
Indeed, Cadillac has approached this livery reveal in a way that not only centers them as America’s representation in the sport, but also aligns them with F1’s promotion strategy in the US. With the major moves F1 has been making in the entertainment industry, like the Netflix Original Drive to Survive and the Hollywood hit F1: The Movie, a Super Bowl commercial seems like the natural next step. And Cadillac took advantage.
Instead of fighting for the attention of current fans who potentially already have a favorite team, Cadillac is working synergistically with F1 to grow the visibility of the sport in America while positioning themselves in front of the newer American audience who is looking for a team to support. After all, knowing that they have a clear home team who leans into the Americana of it all is more likely to make those audiences stick with the sport for longer. It’s a win-win for both sides, and a show of how Cadillac thinks about long-term fan investment from every angle.
Ultimately, doing their livery reveal as a Super Bowl commercial with a Times Square activation was an excellent means of promoting both Cadillac the team and F1 the sport to a market that both are targeting. It carves a space for the 11th team while supporting the health of the series, and if Cadillac continues making clever moves like this, they are sure to leave their mark on the world of F1, and on American sports as a whole.
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