ABOUT

The Brief

As one of the world’s most recognisable racing team brands, Williams Martini Racing F1 needed creative and production support for their video content. Production requirements would last across an entire year and would be broad in scope. This included capturing footage on behalf of their 26 sponsorship partners, filming at various live events throughout the year, creating B2B sales content for the various departments within the organisation, and helping build their reach on social media platforms by enhancing the quality of their video output. These outputs would reach the hundreds, meaning archiving and management solutions would be required to handle the vast amount of footage generated throughout the year for use by broadcasters and partners all over the globe.

The Solution

Williams Martini Racing decided to retain our services at the start of 2015 to provide a full service production solution. To achieve all of the wide-ranging aims, we had to work in a very specific way.

Strategy and Creative: We began by building a whole series of creative ideas that centred around the notion that Williams were the only team on the grid that existed solely to race. All ideas would stem from the tagline: 'Williams - We Are Racing'. Next we devised a set of guidelines, stipulating that only content of the highest standard would be released under the Williams brand. It was important to build a reputation amongst fans that the quality of the content released would reflect the brand message and all be exciting, entertaining and cinematic in nature.

Production: With an expectation that we'd be required for upwards of 20 different shoots throughout the year, time-efficiency and cost-effectiveness were imperative. Our production plan was structured in such a way as to produce content that could be repurposed multiple times. This included the most important filming date in the F1 calendar year. Teams are permitted only 100km of run-time to collect all of their media for all partners throughout the year. This footage would be utilised for everything, from TV commercials through to event coverage.

We assembled a team of over 40 individuals to deliver this content at a race track in Spain. Minute-by-minute preparation is required to pull off a project like this to the highest standard, with a huge amount of logistical and creative thought required for the day to run smoothly.

This same approach would be brought to all Williams filming dates throughout the year, whether it was a heritage car racing at Goodwood or filming the latest technology being developed at the Williams Advanced Engineering factory in Grove.

Post-Production: Managing and handling the footage for an entire year of content creation is no mean feat. We started by implementing innovative software solutions that would allow footage to be archived in a smart way and that allowed staff at Williams and at their Sponsorship Partners to access the material in a smart and efficient way. Over the course of the two years, we have edited and delivered in excess of 1000 films for the team and its partners.

The Results

Viewing figures for the content exceed 50 million people globally with the most watched content receiving in excess of 1 million views online.

The team's Facebook engagements are now greater per 1000 fans than those of Manchester United, Real Madrid and the New York Yankees.