Heineken envisions 'continuous content' for F1

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Heineken’s senior global brand director Gianluca di Tondo says that he plans to help bridge the corporate and entertainment sides of Formula One with expanded digital content over the next three years.

The drinks company was unveiled as Formula One's new global partner at the start of June. While Heineken is still very much in the learning phase when it comes to the opportunities presented by the sport, di Tondo has been excited by the initial work that's already been undertaken.

"2016 is a warm-up, the learning phase - and we are already collecting some good ideas on where we want to go," he told the official Formula One website this week..

"We are a bit of an unusual partner in that we are not in the habit of staying quiet in a corporate suite behind closed doors. We want to be visible and try to bring new energy, and the beauty of all this was to see the same desire on the other side."

"We have already been able to do something nice: we have delivered two campaigns, including our message ‘When you drive, never drink,'" he explained. "And our partnership with Monza saw some nice initiatives like the football match between the F1 drivers and soccer legends.

Heineken has a stated objective to ensure 60 per cent of Formula One fans who drink beer are aware of the company's sponsorship within three years, and di Tondo says that means efficiently leveraging all their assets

"We have two pillars to our F1 commitment: our point of view that F1 is bigger than the race - it is a three-day event - and we need the people out there to know what is happening, and that is why we take it to the streets.

"There is a big gap between the paddock, the Paddock Club and the rest. We think that our role as a beer - and as a sponsor of F1 - is to create bridges between these worlds.

"We will leverage a lot of social media and I think that our main platform to get to these 60 per cent of people is what we call ‘always-on’ platforms.

"We want continuous content on Formula One and also to be sneaking a bit behind the scenes and bringing more people into the world of Formula One.

"You need to sit down and discuss things openly with the people who govern Formula One - and we have a very good relationship with Bernie - to be sure that we have a common line and to share our projects."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.