McLaren: 5 to 53 sponsors in 7 yrs

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McLaren went from 5 to 53 sponsors in 7 years by focusing on being a media company.

I have been festering over this post for the past month. Mainly, figuring out a way to answer the assumptions that "they just started winning” and that’s why they had that growth. It’s frankly completely BS.

Winning is one part of the bigger picture. Momentum is another part.

McLaren's downward spiral began in 2014, when Formula 1 introduced hybrid engines. Cue Fernando Alonso and his "GP2 engine" comments, and things went from bad to worse. Their lowest ever standing was in 2015 when they finished 9th. The team's worst season in 35 years.

Recency bias can lead people to tell a different story. Their last constructors' championship was in 2024; before that, it was 1998. (The constructors' championship is the one that actually makes the money for the team.)

Between 1998 and 2013, they were still competitive. Winning the 2008 drivers' championship with Sir Lewis Hamilton.

Look, Ron Dennis did a fantastic job building that team, and as this comment suggests, they adopted that media mentality before, but not to the extent we see now.

The cultures are vastly different; it's hard to put a finger on exactly what it is. It's an energy within a company. Zak communicates and leads McLaren with a different mentality than Ron did.

I will let Jeremy Clarkson explain it. When Top Gear reviewed the McLaren MP4-12C upon its release, Jeremy compared it to the Ferrari 458 Italia.

Watch 2:57 - 3:35

With basically starting from the back of the field, they needed a reset and a fresh start.

They went through many different team principals:

• Martin Whitmarsh

• Eric Boullier

• Andreas Seidl

• Andrea Stella

Then, Zak stepped fully into the role of CEO in April 2018. In hindsight, it's so easy to say he was the right choice. But he wasn't without his fair share of criticism.

So now we have the context. We know making a property commercially viable begins with the person at the top, and Zak, coming from CSM and Just Marketing, made it clear that he had the right experience.

So you have to then ask:

• What are they communicating?

• How are they setting the energy for the rest of the team?

• Can they make the entire organisation aware of what they are doing?

There was nothing wrong with what Ron Dennis was doing, but there was no sense of forward momentum after he left. And with Zak, the growth and foundations were setting in well before Drive To Survive.

It also reminds me of this fantastic tweet by Lulu Cheng.

Do you chase or do you attract?

So, when I say they become a media company. There is more nuance to adopting that business model when your main job is designing and building fast cars and winning races.

Let me expand on each one and show you how you can adapt it to your world.

Whether you’re a brand or a rights holder.

1/ Zak Brown became the voice: Going direct

If you want the ultimate playbook and mindset on going direct. Read the Rostra manifesto. I swear, just follow Lulu Cheng on Twitter.

There's a simple reason why Zak Brown continues to post on LinkedIn even though McLaren Racing is one of the most popular teams on the platform.

Look at the numbers for the last 6 posts.

From Zak's LinkedIn account (his original posts):

→ 25,043 likes
→ 1,768 comments
→ 527 reposts

From McLaren Racing's company account:

→ 38,882 likes
→ 907 comments
→ 1156 reposts

The likes and reposts might be higher, but the engaging comments are higher on Zak's account. All the partnership content performed better on Zak's than on the McLaren account.

People want to follow, engage with, and purchase from others.

If you have an announcement or release coming soon, use your founder's, partnership execs', and driver's accounts on LinkedIn to generate that initial buzz.

That's especially true if you're a newer team or lack name recognition.

Thought leadership content isn't new in other industries, but in motorsport, it's severely underutilised. By 'severely underutilised', I mean that many motorsport sponsors are not fully leveraging the power of thought leadership content to engage their audience and build their brand. McLaren's success in this area serves as a model for other teams to follow.

It's severely under-utilised. And the other team principal, James Vowles, is following in Zak’s footsteps. They are slowly experiencing the same resurgence and momentum as McLaren.

2/ They tell the story their way: Being distinct

Suppose you ask our team what the keys to success in Formula 1 are. In that case, you'll hear several answers you'd expect: state-of-the-art facilities, innovative technical and design teams, and the best driver pairing on the grid, but also one answer you might not expect: a strong Commercial department.

When everyone in your category is chasing the same objectives, your distinct brand story becomes your competitive advantage. All 10 Formula 1 teams are chasing after wins and similar goals on track.

One of Zak's first major decisions at McLaren was to switch the colour scheme from black and red to the traditional papaya, first used by McLaren in the late 1960s across F1, Can-Am, IndyCar, and even Formula 5000 and Formula 2, as he sought to overhaul our brand's look and feel. This sets the foundation for you to move forward.

Before your corporate partnerships team takes another meeting, answer this: "When every property in our category is offering similar benefits, what's our unmistakable differentiator?" If you can't answer that in one sentence, you're selling commoditised inventory, not distinctive partnership opportunities.

3/ They rebuilt for the next generation: A sense of fun.

Compare the brands that Mercedes attracts with those that McLaren attracts.

Mercedes attracts traditional luxury brands, such as IWC, Petronas, and EPSON. McLaren attracts brands that resonate with a younger, more diverse audience, including OKX, Velas, and its gaming partnerships.

McLaren's orchestration really shines, and it is where most legacy properties fail spectacularly in understanding.

You don't have to go after the younger audience. It's about understanding your consumers and decision makers in relation to your identity.

McLaren's fan experience team thinks beyond race day. Creating social moments, Instagram stories, and content that works across platforms. Their marketing team builds experiences that fans want to share and speak about. Their sales team can then use these authentic moments as proof points with potential partners.

Traditional motorsport teams and rights-holders still treat digital as an afterthought. McLaren treats it as the foundation.

Your fan experience and marketing teams should be reverse-engineering from platform behaviours. Create partnerships that naturally generate the content and experiences this generation craves.

4/ They expanded their world: Extreme E, Formula E, IndyCar, Gaming (trying and iterating)

It's definitely not easy to do, and this strategy does not work for everyone. But when you're McLaren, you have to take these kinds of risks. That risk pays off by expanding into new markets, giving new touchpoints and access to different audiences.

Expansion means more storytelling opportunities for you and your partners.

When they entered Extreme E, it expanded their sustainability narrative and provided partners like Velas with new ways to connect with conscious consumers. Their IndyCar program proves their approach works across different racing cultures and fan bases.

Every expansion reinforces their core brand story. They're amplifying their message across different platforms.

As I mentioned, this is not a strategy for everyone, but it's still impressive to see Zak Brown pushing IndyCar to take a more aggressive approach on the commercial side.

5/ They built a creative from the ground up: Content as partnership currency

It started with Tooned.

McLaren Unboxed became a real estate partner. Tooned became a way to tell partner stories in an ownable format. Even their old Lewis Hamilton "Crib" video from 16 years ago showed they understood content as a competitive advantage before anyone else.

They were building their creative infrastructure for over a decade. While other teams scramble to create content for partnerships, McLaren already has the engine running.

Your creative capabilities should be a competitive advantage in partnership sales. Content should be something your partnerships team uses to win partnerships, easy proof points.

6/ They stayed hands-on with partners

Connecting their partners on social and involving them in their culture and activities. The brands sponsoring are busy, and their partnership is one part of the whole thing.

Watch their social content. Someone at McLaren is having regular conversations with partner marketing teams about upcoming content, events, and opportunities. Partners feel like insiders.

Honestly, every day I find a new person working in partnerships at McLaren. By staying close to partners, McLaren learns about their upcoming campaigns, budget cycles, and strategic priorities before competitors do.

Your partnerships team should schedule monthly calls with partner marketing teams, not to pitch more stuff, but to understand their evolving needs and upcoming initiatives.

These conversations should feed back to your marketing, communications, and fan experience teams so every touchpoint reinforces the partnership value.

They hold their partners' hands. From onboarding to campaigns, McLaren plays the role of co-creator, and that sponsor growth starts with an engaging story.

This is why it really annoys me when people say, "I disagree, they just started winning." Okay…please help me make sense of that. Yes, to some extent, brands wanted to be associated with winners. However, that thinking is so narrow-minded, I can't even begin to describe how stupid that sounds.

Anyways..end of my rant over and with this comment.