CASE STUDY: Puma drives F1 sponsorship awareness without media spending

Background

The 2014 Chinese Grand Prix took place in Shanghai on 20 April. Puma is a global sponsor of the Scuderia Ferrari and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 teams.

Puma knew that spectators spend a lot of time on their mobile phones during the race, taking part in real-time microblogging, photo-sharing, chatting and catching up on the news. Around 200,000 spectators attended the event, which meant somewhere near 200,000 mobile-phone screens to turn into earned media.

Strategy

Puma introduced the "Live WiFi leaderboard". The company positioned 10 wifi-routers at each grandstand of the racing circuit, giving each router a network name matching the names of the top 10 drivers. Drivers from the Ferrari and Mercedes teams were highlighted in association with Puma. During the race, Puma changed the names of the networks during each lap to reflect the live lap timing (see detailed image). in other words, users in the stands could see an up-to-date list of who was in the lead just by refreshing their phone's list of available networks.

Results

In addition to exposure to every spectator who searched for WiFi during the race, the "Live WiFi Leaderboard" racked up more than 54,500 connections by more than 32,200 mobile devices during the race. The brand claims the effort increased awareness of its motorsport sponsorship by 22 per cent, with a media spend of zero dollars.