Vincenzo (00:01.218)
Welcome back to the business of speed podcast. My name is Vincenzo Landino and I am joined by my cohost Colombian Lali Mikkelsen.
Lali (00:11.586)
don't understand why I have to be the co-host. I think I'm the host and you're the co-host.
Vincenzo (00:17.249)
Is that would that make you happy?
Lali (00:18.776)
I'm Lali Mikkelsen and I'm joined by my co-host Vincenzo Landino.
Vincenzo (00:24.782)
I'm happy to be the co-host. That's okay.
Lali (00:27.106)
I think that's better. It just has a better ring to it, I think.
Vincenzo (00:30.926)
Perfect, I love it. I'm okay with it. know, this episode we teased in episode zero, we told people that we were gonna talk a little bit about what our manifesto was, the things that we believe are changing, the things that we believe are happening in racing.
Lali (00:48.768)
Not only that, I think that we get asked often now that we've sort of launched this new venture in its new form, so to speak, what are you doing? What are you offering? Like so many emails we get, right? What's the offering? Can you tell me concretely what are you offering? So we thought, you know what, let's put out a manifesto so people know what we're about, know what we believe. And you know, the inquiring minds want to know, so let's satiate their minds.
Vincenzo (01:10.413)
Mm-hmm.
Vincenzo (01:15.544)
I've been asked why a manifesto to you know, what does by you even you asked me, you know, manifesto that sounds so serious, but it is because we have certain beliefs and we have certain ways that we think things are changing and things should be and by laying them out this way, it just shows that we, we have actual thoughts and, and, and,
we are using our experience over the past two decades to bring something different to the table, whether it's personality, whether it is the knowledge that we can bring, but also something very different in the fact that nobody wants to talk about B2B, no one's looking to bring and make B2B cool. Everybody wants all the...
Lali (02:04.782)
What?
Vincenzo (02:10.232)
big consumer brands and the big tech brands, that's what they want to talk about. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great as well, but there's a whole world out there of businesses that just power and partner with other businesses. even if you look at just some of the sponsors that are out there in just Formula One world, but Formula One, even IndyCar with NTT and Formula One with Oracle, AWS.
all of the McLaren sponsors, Google, and everything they have on their car. Those are all partners that are very B2B centered businesses. They're powering other businesses.
Lali (02:49.548)
very B2B. Arrow electronics is a huge, they started in IndyCar. Nobody knew who Arrow electronics was. Now they're obviously part of the McLaren ecosystem. There's so much B2B. And in fact, IndyCar has been a model for a long time for B2B sponsorships.
for a very long time because the reality was there weren't that many eyeballs on the series. So it was more of a B2B play. Obviously there was DHL, there was Target for a very long time, but really it was a very big B2B play for decades. And the reality is that F1 is also now a very big B2B play as well, right? There's a lot of sponsors that you see on cards, names that nobody recognizes, right? Because you can't buy their product.
Vincenzo (03:35.682)
Hehehehe
Lali (03:38.582)
not for you it's a b2b play so yeah
Vincenzo (03:41.57)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, most people, if they weren't a client of mine, right? When people, when Red Bull signed Oracle, or when Oracle and Red Bull partnered, a lot of people are like, what's Oracle? mean, people didn't know what Oracle was unless they've used it in some regard in their company.
Lali (03:59.915)
Or they were America's Cup fans like myself.
Vincenzo (04:02.655)
or they were America's Cup fans, again, very small racing subset. so just it's fascinating to see how much money comes from these, these businesses, these very large corporations and people don't even realize who they are.
Lali (04:17.452)
Tassian, which is now with Williams, AWS, like there's so many that we could name.
Vincenzo (04:19.553)
of course. They're all there. They're all there. But to you know, where we come in is we believe that the old model is dead. The idea that sponsorship is just signage. You throw money at your you know, having a logo on a car. And that's good enough. It doesn't. It's not it's not effective. It's very expensive. Oftentimes, it's
Lali (04:40.302)
It's all about anachronism. It doesn't work. That's not how it is.
Vincenzo (04:48.151)
just an ego play. It is some executive that said, I want to play in that sandbox with those people. I want to be seen there. I want to get suites at Formula One Grands Prix and that's where I want to be. And it is, it tends to be an ego play.
Lali (05:06.904)
I want to be seen at Monaco. want to be on the yacht. want to do that for a very long time. was the that was what was happening. But times are a chain, my friend.
Vincenzo (05:11.052)
Mm-hmm.
Vincenzo (05:16.599)
Yep. Yeah. They change and what we have set out to change or I guess what we believe is the advantage today is velocity, is the C-suite, the brands, the rights holders. You have to move faster. Yes. But you also have to connect deeper. You have to connect with the fans that you're getting in front of. You have to execute.
Lali (05:41.46)
Exactly.
Vincenzo (05:45.526)
You have to have a reason almost to exist within that ecosystem. If you're just showing up as a logo on a car, there's, mean, McLaren's a perfect example. If you are a sponsor on a McLaren car, on the McLaren car right now in Formula One, you are battling with, I don't even know the exact number, it might be 100.
Lali (06:12.814)
many? 127 other sponsors. It's some ridiculous number. And the reality is that I want people listening right now to tell me how many McLaren sponsors they can name and they can probably name three because there are so many, they're all lost in the melee of sponsorships. The reality is that there, none of them are not. I would say that currently today, the only
Vincenzo (06:16.191)
It's some ridiculous number that
Vincenzo (06:30.594)
Mm-hmm.
Lali (06:38.798)
super, super clever. There's two perhaps clever sponsorships on an actual car are Duracell Williams. Come on. Incredible people must be, you know, those energizer people must be killing themselves if they didn't think about that first. And I really liked the WhatsApp with the Mercedes. I think that that was a very clever play, right? Those are, those are two very cool, so well thought out, so
Vincenzo (06:47.842)
Hmm.
Lali (07:07.926)
laser focused sponsorships, but the reality is that other than a few sponsors, nobody can name them a Clarence sponsors, right? Because there's no impact. It's just the logo slap. That's not what we're about.
Vincenzo (07:20.181)
And there are some that are doing a good job and I'll give them their flowers. But for everybody else, you have to differentiate. How do you differentiate? And so we built Business of Speed, the consulting offering together, Lali and I, we built that to be almost an operating system to connect you with your audience, where they are for maximum impact. It is not enough to get views and clicks.
and other vanity metrics. It's just not enough. And if you look at Formula One car, how fast it goes by, if you've been to a race track and you've watched a car go by, you can't make out what's on the side of a car. You can't.
Lali (08:06.726)
certainly if you've been to a race track, you know, you cannot at home, you have the luxury of seeing the cars. If you've ever been to a race track, whether it's an Indy car race or a formula one race or a NASCAR race, whatever race you've been to my friends, you know that you cannot make out anything on those cars unless you are super lucky and you have some paddock access, which means that you get to see those cars when they are stationary in the garage. Otherwise,
Vincenzo (08:12.979)
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Vincenzo (08:22.477)
Mm-hmm.
Vincenzo (08:34.475)
Yeah, and even then you're not looking at the sponsors on the side of the car.
Lali (08:37.538)
You're really not looking at it you're so in awe of the cars. But the reality is that that that if you're at a racetrack, you're not appreciating who's sponsoring what car whatsoever. So we think that that in and of itself is a wasted space of sponsorship, that there's a lot to be done in that space on track. Yeah, we're just done with with the sticker mentality, right? We're so over it. Why why why put your sticker on a
Vincenzo (08:41.228)
The car, yeah.
Vincenzo (08:57.281)
Mm-hmm.
Vincenzo (09:05.196)
Yeah.
Lali (09:07.438)
one of a million. That's, that's a waste of 10, $20 million.
Vincenzo (09:09.803)
No.
So not only do we reject the sticker mentality, but we reject these passive deals. A lot of these deals are very passive. It's like I said, agreements that they're just tied to vanity metrics. There's no real world operational impact or fan engagement or cultural leverage. Culture is very, very fascinating to me. I know it's fascinating to Lali. And if you
I mean, net level take Netflix itself and what they've done to F1, but not just F1, the entire racing ecosystem, all different series, everybody wants to copy what Formula One did with drive to survive because it was a cultural lever that was pulled. You know, it was great timing Liberty Media, F1 media, Netflix, the production companies, they did a fantastic job to make that happen. But it was a cultural movement for
Lali (09:52.245)
Everyone.
Vincenzo (10:09.736)
a few seasons before it's, you know, it started to die down and that's only that's that's what happens, right? There's TV shows are no longer good after three or four series, right? It's very rare you get a Game of Thrones, a Breaking Bad, a Sopranos like it doesn't exist anymore.
Lali (10:10.808)
It was.
Lali (10:26.23)
No, but you're right. In my advertising world, you know how many times clients have come and they have this idea of this biopic, some kind of a docu situation. And everyone always says, it's kind of like a drive to survive. You know, kind of like a drive to survive. People who have nothing to do, it's about like, you know, potato chips, but they want to make it look and feel like a drive to survive. This is a very common thing. It's cultural psychics.
Vincenzo (10:35.756)
Sure. Yeah.
Vincenzo (10:41.608)
everybody wants to survive just like yeah
Vincenzo (10:50.4)
The last time I heard something was with Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown. A lot of our customers, this is before the Drive to Survive days, we wanna create a Parts Unknown, an Anthony Bourdain vibe where our employees go exploring whatever our customers' locations and things like that. But it was a cultural.
move like they were trying to tie themselves to some other cultural phenomenon.
Lali (11:17.888)
He was a phenomenon on it, you know? Shout out to Anthony Bourdain, absolute legend of a man. Rest in peace.
Vincenzo (11:22.828)
Yeah, rest in peace. But to us, we reject that passive deal. A deal should not just be a line item. They should not just be a transaction. Yep, we signed on to put our sticker on this car. We're gonna get some paddock passes. We're gonna get some meet and greets. And that's it. There has to be more. You have to go beyond. You have to integrate with
the audience that you are trying or you're getting in front of if you could give to them, they will give back to you. And so we truly, truly reject this, this passive deal. I've seen it far too many times with current sponsors, current, very large sponsors who have spent hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars to be on the side of a car. And then
Lali (12:00.207)
Goodbye.
Vincenzo (12:19.208)
You don't even know they exist after that. Other than being on the side of the car, you don't really know that they're even there. They don't engage with fans.
Lali (12:24.546)
You know, there was a time when we were kids and we were growing up watching motor sports because there were so few of us fans. We were so loyal to the brands. I remember
I had to once rent a moving truck and I specifically rented a Penske truck because I was so grateful for Rogers pens, Penske for being a sponsored motorsports, et cetera. went out on my way to not rent a U-Haul and rent a Penske because I was so grateful that he was a part of the series that I loved so much. the nowadays, so that was us, right? Where you were actually brand loyal. Now I think people have forgotten that, there, when you're a fan of, of, of a sport,
Vincenzo (12:45.036)
There you go.
Lali (13:06.03)
you're really a diehard, you're very, you're loyal. So we, we've forgotten that. And so that's why I don't like the passive deal because we need to get into people's loyalty and they want to support your brand because it's part of a team or a driver who they love and adore. And I am going to buy this, not your competitors specifically because this driver or this team is benefiting directly from your sponsor.
Vincenzo (13:35.085)
Sure. Sponsorship is now partnership. That's what it comes down to. It's you're not buying space. You're building some sort of leverage. You're getting your hands dirty as a sponsor. You're integrating into the culture of speed. And that requires systems that requires legwork that requires knowledge that requires your employees to be engaged. That requires you to actually show up. That requires you to dedicate
Lali (13:38.284)
Yeah, 100%.
Lali (13:53.134)
Yeah.
Vincenzo (14:04.64)
more resources, you know, you can't say, well, I already spent $500 million to be on the side of the car. We're not going to spend any more. Well, if you spend 500 million, you can spend another whatever it takes to make sure you get the impact of that sponsorship. And that's where that's where we also reject what we are calling, or at least I'm calling the black box. And this, the idea that these motor sports partnerships are so complex and specialized.
Lali (14:18.062)
Yeah.
Lali (14:25.538)
Yeah, I love that. We reject the Black Box.
Vincenzo (14:34.188)
that the C-suite can't really grasp and that they're confused or it is just an ego play. It has been traditionally just an ego play, but that confusion and that lack of transparency with the C-suite is what leads to underinvestment, missed opportunities, and really not tying the appropriate operational, you know, keep KPIs to a sponsorship.
Lali (15:02.804)
you what I explained to someone the other day, Vincenzo? So imagine that you, you sawed your lawn, right? You sawed your lawn. It cost you a fortune. It cost your fortune to saw your lawn. But then you're like, well, I don't want to put the sprinkler system into water because I already spent a fortune sawing my lawn. So I don't want to put the water. So that's what I tried to explain to someone. It doesn't matter that you spent $50 million putting your logo on the car. That does nothing for you.
Vincenzo (15:05.454)
What did you say?
Vincenzo (15:11.222)
Mm-hmm.
Vincenzo (15:19.018)
Yep. Yep.
Vincenzo (15:26.39)
Correct.
Lali (15:29.466)
are we going to activate that? How are we going to leverage that? What can we do to actually make this a proper ROI for you beyond the logo slap, as we call it. You cannot just sawed your lawn and then say, I don't have the money for the water. Cause what we all know what's going to happen to that sawed. Right? So this is exactly what we're talking about. The under investment, just putting the logo on the car is not enough. need people.
Vincenzo (15:33.172)
Absolutely.
Lali (15:55.415)
with passion, something we talk about a lot, extreme creativity, you know, to come in and tell you or guide you to how you maximize this investment because it is a huge investment and we appreciate that. Let's just invest a little bit more and get this really rolling for you. Let's rock and roll for real.
Vincenzo (16:16.18)
It's about being bold. It's about taking taking chances. You've already spent half a billion dollars, whatever it might be. You know, why not be bold? Why not break out of the box tradition that traditionally you've sat in? I I know there's a lot of sponsors that they will go and sponsor a car and it's something that they've never done before. They never thought they could do before they do it. And then they're paralyzed by the fact that they've done it and they think, OK, we've checked the box.
We checked the box, we did it, and okay, we got it across the finish line. Okay, I mean, if that's enough for you, fine, but you're probably not going to reinvest, right? So this actually works in many different ways. This works for teams to want to engage their partners, and it works for the brands that want longevity out of their partnership.
Lali (16:49.368)
We put it on our LinkedIn. We put it on our LinkedIn.
Vincenzo (17:13.3)
It works for right holders, rights holders who need the private or money coming in from these brands. If you're not engaging them properly, you're constantly having to recycle. There's so much turnover with sponsors because they don't even know what they don't know what to do beyond giving you money and getting their name put somewhere.
Lali (17:33.695)
You know what else? Vincenzo's interesting.
something else is interesting is that right now, depending on, if you think about, let's say Indy car, there's 17 races, I think next year, F one 24, the circuits themselves are competing to draw crowds. That's something that we can touch about in other, in future episodes. But the reality is that I'm a, I'm a huge fan. I do not have unlimited resources. I may be able to, let's say go to one or two races a year. Who, who wants my money? Where am I going to get the best experience?
Vincenzo (17:48.94)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Vincenzo (18:05.119)
Yeah, absolutely.
Lali (18:06.778)
Right? So even the circuits are competing for our dollars or pounds sterling for our, for our UK friends, our euros or pesos in my Columbia friends.
Vincenzo (18:14.14)
or euro.
Vincenzo (18:18.283)
or whatever, Riyals in Saudi Arabia.
Lali (18:21.748)
Real in Brazil. but that even that, it really, if you, if you think about it, it's not only the, the rights holders is not only the sponsors, it's not only the teams, it's not only the drivers who are competing for attention. The circuits themselves have become a very big business and they're, they themselves need to bring in the fans because guess what? If you don't have people in those grandstands and, and the drive to survive peak, okay, we've, probably at the peak, right?
We're probably, we've probably reached that peak. So feeling grandstands isn't an easy task and I've never worked in, worked in, in, in promotion, but I have close friends who have, it is not the easiest task and there's a lot of stress up until, you know, weeks before a race happens where you're stressed about selling out the grandstands and, and the promoters have a lot of,
Vincenzo (18:52.873)
Maybe, maybe a little, coming down a little bit.
Lali (19:15.372)
you know, a weight on their shoulders, so to speak. Right. So even in that sense, it's like, how do you promote your track? Who do you bring in to promote your track, to sell the tickets, to make it more attractive? There's so many moving parts in racing that people don't realize everybody's competing for attention.
Vincenzo (19:32.3)
Yeah. So we have our six mechanisms of velocity. So business of speed. think we probably have more, but these are our six core mechanisms how to execute or how we help execute this model and how we turn these contracts into an actual advantage for you and a competitive advantage against the other
Lali (19:47.128)
Six months, yeah.
Vincenzo (20:02.219)
75 sponsors you might be competing against. So number one is C-suite education. First and foremost, this is this, this to me probably sits right around one a right. It's, it's very, it is very, it is as important as our next one. but if leadership doesn't understand what it is they're, buying into or they're signing off on,
How can they ensure that the strategy is, or that they're driving the strategy? How can they ensure that the people under them are bought into it?
Lali (20:42.44)
into it and there's and all the stakeholders and the people on the board of directors and all the staff If you have a company of thousands of employees, how do you justify this investment to these people who are profit-sharing? Etc, right? So if your leaders don't understand the sport and the why and and the benefit you're doomed the other thing that is sort of and Forgive the word slightly cringe perhaps is for for someone in us on a c-suite level
Vincenzo (20:53.542)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Lali (21:11.298)
who sponsors a car or a team or a driver to show up to the Grand Prix of Las Vegas or anywhere, Qatar, Miami, anywhere, and they literally do not know anything about racing.
This is a problem. You need to know the players. You need to know who Zach Brown is. need to know Toto Wolf. You need to know what's happening because your company has spent a ton of money and you need to be informed and you need to be educated. So C-suite education, think, is a big umbrella that we cover. And I think one of the core offerings that we're very passionate about because we think it makes a big difference, actually.
Vincenzo (21:27.764)
I seen it.
Vincenzo (21:43.115)
Mm-hmm.
Vincenzo (21:51.937)
Yeah, for me, having a lot of experience with the C-suite at very large multinational companies, you know, they don't have time. They don't have time. They don't have hours of time. So what we've what we've built is, you know, kind of like insider briefings almost and custom intelligence reports for C-suite for the C-suite. You know, here is what you need to know. Here's almost like a dossier of
everything that matters for you, for your partnership, and what's happening, talking points, how to keep you up to date. I mean, it's essentially how Business of Speed, the newsletter was born and was geared towards, but we're going a little more custom based on, you know, our clients and who they're associated with. It matters, that doesn't matter. So we custom tailor these reports and this intelligence for
the C-suite. It is crucial to have as much knowledge as they can. You you have you have very important leaders in a company that they're going from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting. They are bouncing around the world. They don't have time to fully, you know, immerse themselves. But if they're able to if they're able to take a look at something
Lali (23:18.104)
They're not under the obligation to be Formula One experts or IndyCar experts or WEC experts or they're, we want to help them. Maybe their passion is baseball. You can continue being very passionate about baseball. You bring us in and we will help you feel very comfortable in the F1 world.
Vincenzo (23:20.502)
No.
Vincenzo (23:23.958)
But we want to help them. Yeah.
Vincenzo (23:33.921)
Yeah. So with with one a I think comes one B or vice versa about partnership messaging and these deals, these incredible deals are really nothing without the story behind them and crafting a narrative, crafting a story as to what and why the why behind partnerships is how you
start to humanize that brand, how you start to humanize that partnership, you create clarity behind the deal and how it might be empowering everything from a pit stop to the sales team, right? Like there's, you look at AWS, there's data that they are processing and there are millions of data points that they are processing from the car to the team back at the factories, right?
they are processing this data and it works at so many different levels. And there's other sponsors that do the same thing AWS is one that came to mind, but there's there's dozens, every team has some sort of data partner like that. And we oftentimes don't hear enough about these data partners, we don't know what they're doing other than occasionally like a white paper and things like that. But you know, there are opportunities for them to tell that story. And so the messaging of that partnership, you know, how are you
How are you telling that? How are you?
How are you connecting with the audience that has no idea who you are? They have no idea why you're involved, right? Oftentimes there's negative narratives that go around about a lot of these companies, right? Obviously large companies that are all over the world, and in a very political sport, they catch a lot of flack for anything. So.
Lali (25:05.388)
Literally no idea. Yeah.
Vincenzo (25:26.624)
why not build your own narrative? And that's why we have the narrative engine and we wanna make sure that we build the narrative for you and that partnership.
Lali (25:34.243)
very passionate about this as well because obviously as a lifelong writer, storyteller, this is very much something that I'm very passionate about because a good story can either make or break an idea, right? if you have, you already have an incredible product, but if you're not telling the right story with the right messaging and it's really...
Vincenzo (25:47.659)
Mm-hmm.
Lali (25:57.367)
evocative and it makes sense and it's not trite and people really buy into it and believe it and they see the connection, they see the passion, you're gonna hit a home run likely.
The reality is that really, really good storytelling drives creative in all aspects. That's just a given, In the world of marketing and advertising, et cetera, and at the end of the day, that's what we're doing here, right? You're marketing your company. The reality is nobody's doing this. This is not the, like I say, it's not a charity organization, right? This is all for money. This is a very for-profit business across everyone involved.
And if you have the right story, that's going to be really, really helpful for your bottom line. And it goes back to that sort of loyalty thing, right? People connect. And as soon as you have someone connect,
in any way to what you're trying to say, what you're trying to sell, you're winning. You really are winning that game because there's so much distraction in the arena. You need to be the ones who stand out with a really compelling laser focused story that makes sense to people, that seems genuine. And you're going to get brand loyalty that way.
Vincenzo (27:17.151)
Yeah. Our third pillar is content creation, which I think is table. It's table stakes in the game right now. Content connection where where audiences live. You have to find there are so many different places nowadays and it seems like there's new places every every week, every month, maybe a new place where people can.
connect and be social and do things. It's so important for for the brands to and I say just the brands, not just the brands, but again, rights holders, executives to show up. You just just show up. You know, not everything needs to be the highest production value content all the time. There's many times the more real authentic content is what is what wins with those
those folks. We see it all the time, McLaren, when I say McLaren, any team will post something super high production value. It's cool. But everything on the feed is high production value. The minute they just have one of the drivers talking to the camera walking off, you know, off the grid, or off the paddock, it goes crazy, right? Because people feel like
Lali (28:37.038)
My favorite example of this and I didn't know you're gonna talk about this is What about and this is I think everybody who watches F1 will and I'm sorry if you don't watch F1 But if you do you're gonna really relate to this after the race when the first second and third place driver are in that TV room right before they go out on the podium and we have the hot mics
Vincenzo (28:54.854)
great content.
Lali (28:58.316)
And we're just listening to like Max ask Oscar, that was you. Did you see when this happened? Were you breaking late? Did you notice that in turn seven? was a, did you see the, the, you know, rat run across the, and we're all riveted in just hearing them talk, right? It's the least scripted moments of the whole thing. And then when they cut away from it, they're all like, no, no, we want it to hear more because we're so it's the best.
Vincenzo (29:05.589)
Fantastic.
Vincenzo (29:22.923)
It's the best.
Lali (29:26.958)
And honestly, I'm very upset every time they cut away from that because everyone adores it and we just like hearing them talk. We had that really famous moments back in the day when remember Lewis through the cap at Nico, he was so pissed off and then Nico jumped right back and like those real moments behind the scenes. We really liked that very much on screen.
Vincenzo (29:42.44)
yeah, he's pissed.
Vincenzo (29:49.419)
Well, we had multi 21.
Weber and Vettel. That was another good one.
Lali (29:56.271)
I'm sorry for those of you who don't understand Multi21, just Google it because that is sort of iconic in F1 history, Multi21. But we don't have time in this podcast to explain it, maybe in another.
Vincenzo (30:02.419)
It's a good one.
Vincenzo (30:08.373)
But for the content, this is why we have a content flywheel that we design. We help to build more brand equity or I guess it's partnership equity through the content. Yes, engagement matters. It's great to have the highest engaged posts and whatnot. But are people remembering you beyond that post? If it's just you need to go and create more and more posts to get
people to hit their dopamine. That's you can you can only create so much right and we understand the limitations but being able to have or drive specific and measurable actions for your from your target audience. That's what's more important right. Especially in the B2B world. That's very important right. That's where sometimes there's a difference between the B2B and the B2C. It's sure Red Bull they can sell high flying extreme all day long. It's whatever.
IBM or AWS, can they really sell that? Yeah, they can do it, they can do a stunt, but no one will remember it past the stunt. so how do they create, how do you create something that lasts, has a longer tail, actually drives some sort of action that's measurable from that audience. And that's what we, again, from the experience we have and working with these types of brands.
That's what we're helping build the content flywheel. The. Go ahead.
Lali (31:41.529)
which leads us to, well, I was just gonna say the next sort of cog in the wheel is activations, right? Something that we both have, I've worked with extensively.
Vincenzo (31:50.507)
I know you're very passionate about that,
Lali (31:52.823)
I worked extensively in activations. absolutely adore them. think that a well-done activation is brilliant. I think some of them are very vanity-based and narcissistic, et cetera, and they're just money you throw away, which is not what we like to do for our clients. We like to do very clever, sort of, I'll use the word that I used earlier, laser-focused activations that really bring together...
stakeholders, decision makers, that work. And they're not always on track on a circuit also. That's something that we should clarify. Sometimes they're adjacent. They're in the vicinity of a track or a circuit, but they don't have to be necessarily on site at a circuit.
Vincenzo (32:36.35)
Yeah. I know really, I mean, you nailed it. I don't even have to go further. It's yeah, there's, there's some good ones I've seen some pretty good ones I've seen. There's, there are some teams that are doing a good job of having some activations at certain circuits. which is, is great. It's great engagement for fans and fans talk about it. You know, again, being tapped in to where people are talking, whether it's online or kind of ear to the ground.
when you nail your activation in Miami and everyone's talking about you, even though you're a bottom of the grid team, that's a win. That's a win. That could be the difference between no sponsors next year and a handful of high paying sponsors. And I'm not saying no sponsors, literally, but.
Lali (33:27.266)
That means.
People don't understand the amount of, or I'm sorry, I don't mean to, or maybe already this doesn't understand, but the amount of money involved that could mean hiring five more engineers, getting, being able to go from a C tier driver, so to speak, to a B tier driver. Like that really represents that sponsorship money that you can bring into the team. It represents so much more beyond just the logo, like an actual dollars for the team. means a lot.
Vincenzo (33:35.86)
Mm-hmm.
Vincenzo (33:57.163)
Absolutely. Yeah. And then activations with activations comes event hosting, which is a little bit different. It's more of the personality hire really over here, Lali and myself, but using ourselves. We want to leverage. We want to leverage what we love to do, which is networking and helping facilitate kind of like insider led events.
Lali (33:58.416)
So.
Lali (34:14.126)
mean, who wouldn't watch us?
Vincenzo (34:27.112)
Whether it could be at a circuit, could be at a team hospitality, but there is a lack of knowledgeable and insider type hosts for... No, no, no, no, no. It's more than hospitality, right? There are plenty of hospitality companies out there that hire attractive people to be in a, you know...
Lali (34:41.944)
Certainly not women from Colombia, zero.
Vincenzo (34:57.116)
in a suite and serve drinks and that's great. mean, it's lovely. They're lovely. But there's also a need and I've actually had brands specifically ask for this type of stuff where they're looking for almost like they want to hang out with insiders. They want to hang out with knowledgeable folks that can help them almost understand or deepen relationships.
Lali (35:02.149)
they're lovely. Yes, of course. They're lovely.
Vincenzo (35:27.304)
you introduce them, like create more partnerships right there within the room. so, you know, Lali and myself, yeah, I mean, we've, we've done this for such a long time, liaising and helping bring together brands. It's, it's what I did for the better part of over a decade.
Lali (35:33.344)
I don't
Lali (35:47.215)
But also, for instance, very comfortable public speakers because I, for instance, I've been pitching creative and doing awards and doing speeches when I've had the fortune to win awards in the past. so we're very comfortable as public speakers. But the reality is that if you took blood out of our veins, there's motor oil in there, right? So you have...
Vincenzo (35:51.421)
Sure.
Vincenzo (35:55.914)
Mm-hmm.
Vincenzo (36:09.226)
I got a little bit of, I got some Ajeeb pulling out, know, hanging out of my blood over here.
Lali (36:15.608)
There you go, so that's us. yeah, so event hosting is one of our offerings because we just love to do it. We love to be in front of people, we're very social, and we love networking with people and we...
Vincenzo (36:24.926)
Yeah. If you're looking to deepen key client relationships, partner relationships in an environment where you have already invested in such as, you know, hospitality suite, or you are already a partner and you have access to, you know, a pad, a club, whatever it might be, you have a suite in there. If your key clients are there, you want them to be engaged in such a way that's going to want them to
invest more, come back, talk positively. And facilitating those is something that we have come to specialize in. then lastly, one of our one of our final pillars, but I think the pillar that we had talked about a little bit earlier, employee engagement, your employees, whether you are a rights holder, a brand, a team, your employees are the greatest asset. And so
Lali (36:56.354)
facilitate the situation.
Vincenzo (37:25.428)
demystifying what motorsports is in general, the formula one one on one sessions that Lali was talking about earlier, or just motors or racing one on one different racings. It's so important to get employees on board. That's how you truly activate when you have people on board, not just your C suite, but the C suite management leadership, and then all the way down to the just the employees that are working on this.
If everybody's on board, they understand they can take pride in it, but they also have a little bit of excitement around it. That's how you fully activate a partnership. That's how you fully engage your audience when everybody is truly excited, not just someone at the top who's telling everybody else what you have to do this, or maybe some people at the bottom who are trying to push it up to the, know, to the C-suite and trying to get them to understand it. When everything comes together and I hate to use this word, this synergy,
But when there is that synergy between leadership, C-suite, employees, the brands, the partners, that's how you make sweet music. You can't do that without everybody really in unison, know, working in unison. And so that's where things like our lunch and learns or, you know, employee specific events that we host are so important, educational events are so important, getting people on board.
getting them to understand why it is we are doing what we are doing as the brand.
Lali (38:57.446)
The reality is that when you're sponsoring F1, a lot of these organizations have thousands of employees, right? So that's a lot of people that could be fans and that could be fans and that could support this. And sometimes it's hard when you're the person in payroll, right? You don't understand why is this company spending so much money on this? Why are they not just giving us all bonuses? Wouldn't that be a better way to use the money, right? So for us to come in,
Vincenzo (39:25.492)
Mm-hmm.
Lali (39:26.88)
explain to them, actually, you're likely to get a bigger bonus if this partnership works out because of this and this and this, then it makes sense for the employee. They're like, okay, see, I get it. I get it. Right. So that, that matters to get employee buy-in.
when you're spending so much money on something, right? Especially for companies that are, you know, not totalitarian, you know, companies who actually have a really nice culture. Well, why don't we just educate your staff and your employees across the world and explain to them why this makes sense and why you're doing it. And, and, you know, bonus, let's tell you a little bit about F1 and why it's amazing. Or again, IndyCar or Weka or wherever you're, spending your sponsorship dollars.
Vincenzo (40:09.534)
This is the system we are building. This is what we call new velocity. This is how we want to see brands partner with rights holders series, how executives start yielding control, getting buy in. It's really not the time. Like right now is the time in racing to get in, to go all in, but also do it the right way. It's
You know, you have to be able to iterate, you have to be able to jump quickly, you have to be able to measure the performance, you have to stop just buying space, buying a logo.
Lali (40:48.334)
Sorry, a mosquito. I'm sorry for those who are not watching. had a mosquito on my face and I interrupted Vincenzo's very serious statements. I apologize.
Vincenzo (40:57.374)
My serious statement here about the company that we're building. She's wiping away her mosquito because she's afraid she's gonna get a mosquito bite on her forehead. No, it wouldn't. But that's what we're doing and that's how we want to help. This is our manifesto. This is Business of Speed. Let's get to work. Lali, Vincenzo.
Lali (41:06.114)
It would not be great. It would not be ideal for them.
Lali (41:19.914)
I am your host, Lalyn Kirsten, and here's my co-host.
Vincenzo (41:24.55)
I'm the co-host, Vincenzo Landino. We're gonna catch you the next one. We have a good episode coming. The following episodes will be shorter than the first two episodes. are aiming for about 20, 25 minute episodes. We're gonna be talking about circuits. So tune in to our next episode if you wanna hear about circuits. We have some really, really interesting feelings on circuits.
Lali (41:35.372)
We promise.
Vincenzo (41:53.366)
And I'm just gonna leave it at that. Circuits, tracks. Yeah, we have some thoughts and we have some things we wanna talk about. Including maybe the Porta-Loo index, if you don't know what that is. Don't look it up, wait till we talk about it. We'll catch you on the next one. Ciao.
Lali (41:58.552)
road tracks, street tracks. We want to talk a lot about that. we'll see.
Lali (42:07.192)
So look it up.
Ciao for now.