POWER PLAY
Dieter Rencken on Force India
Force India boss Vijay Mallya always was a flash kind of guy, what with his ring-bedecked fingers, monster diamond-studded ear baubles and aerodynamic hairstyles. Yet, at the turn of this year, not even his wildest sense of glitz-glam could have foreseen a striking pink car bearing his initials contesting the F1 world championship (even if his partner is known, happily, as ‘Pinky’).
F1-watchers steeled themselves for the most unexpected pre-season livery change since BAR were forced to run ‘zipper’ war paint to appease their joint Lucky Strike/555 sponsors, after the FIA enforced a ban on teams running cars in different colours. Once the shock had receded, the pressing question was: “Why didn’t Force India reveal the sponsorship at their 2017 launch two weeks earlier?”
The answer is simple: negotiations between the team and BWT, an Austrian water technology company with £500m in annual revenues and employing more than 3,300 employees across the world, had not at that stage commenced in earnest. Yet, just 12 days later, cars and kit had been re-liveried and the deal announced to an astounded world. That ‘kit’, incidentally, includes more than 3,000 items of team clothing.
Equally, having sealed four deals during the winter – including a switch from Smirnoff vodka logos to those of Johnnie Walker whisky – there was a need to tidy up the spacing yet still provide sufficient visibility of all branding partners.
Thus one of F1’s funkiest-ever colour schemes rode on the back of one of the fastest-ever deals – certainly one of this magnitude, in recent times, in the world’s fastest sport. Equally astounding is that the £15m deal (before annual escalators) was completed electronically, and that the first meeting between team and BWT executives was scheduled for the Australian Grand Prix.
During Formula 1’s test fortnight in Spain, the word spreading around the paddock was that title and/or livery sponsorship deals had been consigned to history; that teams need to string two or three major deals together simply to make budget. Yet here was Force India, headed by the beleaguered team boss and with rather modest premises, so visibly bucking that trend. How did the team manage to close this deal so quickly – and in total secrecy?
“It was a perfect storm,” explained an insider. “It needed a can-do attitude, a willingness to be flexible about colour and the management courage to carry it off. That is where Vijay and Otmar [Szafnauer, COO] have been good for us. They let us get on with things. It helped, of course, that we finished fourth last year because that enabled us to sell performance, but at more affordable rates. We don’t discount, but I believe we offer better bang for bucks than the others. It was a total team effort that pulled it off. It also helps that Vijay takes decisions without referral up the line.”
BWT had, ahem, tested the waters in motorsport sponsorship with Mercedes in DTM, and that got the company thinking about F1 as a platform for their recently introduced brand-globalisation strategy. Formula 1 is without peer in this regard, but a similar deal with any ‘big three’ team (Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull) – assuming team management would even dare to ‘think pink’ – would come in at roughly double the Force India rate card.
Thus BWT’S options were simple: full branding, or a few stickers only – for the same budget – elsewhere. Consider the visual impact of a pink car versus the alternative of wings and sidepods mixed up with reds or blues, or even orange and black. Realistically, if BWT wished to be highly conspicuous on the F1 grid they had to set their sights further down the field – and hence Force India came into play.
BWT completed their due diligence, and, being based near Salzburg, their management even consulted Mercedes F1 chief Toto Wolff. He was suitably positive about the team, but paddock cynicism being what it is, there have been numerous suggestions that the Austrian gleefully foresaw Force India’s Mercedes engine bills being settled via pinky envelopes, given that the annual fee roughly equals the sponsorship value.
Significantly, the Mercedes threepointed star is conspicuous by its absence on the VJM10 – lending credence to this theory, but then, so what? Red Bull have TAG Heuer paying their engine bills and Toro Rosso are actively seeking an engine branding partner, so why can’t BWT (indirectly) cover the costs of Mercedes power by painting the cars pink?
Whatever the case, apart from infusing the 2017 grid with matte-pink, the Bwtforce India tie-up is one of the feel-good stories of the F1 pre-season, and proves that big deals are out there to be had.
All it takes is a dash of management courage, and 12 days’ notice.