In the Driver’s Seat: McLaren’s Race to the Top

0:00Was there a moment when you were like, I'm a freaking world champion? I genuinely woke up and I was like, damn, I did it. I've done it. We did it as a team. And it's just a pretty amazing thing. I think there was 34 to 35 other people in the world that have achieved that. So for me to be part of that pretty elite group is something I kind of never believed. But I've got to force myself to believe it now. It's quite a big moment, like taking number four off the car. Yeah. Putting one on. Yeah, it looks way better. Big moment.

0:28He's literally the driver behind the wheel Lando Norris is my guest today The Formula One world champion Behind every great driver is a great team That's where Lou McEwan comes in She's the chief marketing officer Powering the McLaren brand to world champion status Behind the wheel and under the hood These two show what resilience looks like in a sport where thousands of a second determine winning versus losing. Together, they're pushing the pedal to the metal on and off the racetrack. Let's have a chat and hear their insights.

1:07Hey Lou, how you doing? Hi Josh, so good to be here. This may be the most exotic place I've ever recorded a podcast. It's a pretty good backdrop, a little on the hot side. We're both British, right? And we're melting a little bit in the sun. We are, although I hear it's even hotter back in the UK at the moment. Welcome to Frontier CMO. Welcome back to Cannes. How's the week panning out for you so far? It's a busy one. You know, McLaren have been coming to Cannes over the last 10 years or so. But this year, I think the whole grid's here. The whole Formula One grid's lining up. It's kind of words got out about this Formula One business, I think.

1:39So once again, the rest of the grid is behind you, is what you're saying? Let's hope so. Let's hope so. Why is McLaren here? Like, what do you get out of coming to a festival of advertising creativity? So I think if you look at the sport and the change that we've gone through in the last couple of years, right? Formula One used to be a really B2B world. If you look at the way the brands that show up here, many of our partners, obviously Google being one of them, they're showing up. I think we learn so much. It's good to step away from the racetrack every now and again, look at creativity and sports big news here, right?

2:06Again, I think that ability for sport to cut through to fans and engage them in ways that other typical media can't, I think it's fantastic. So good to be here and get some inspiration to take back to HQ. Okay. So your story with McLaren has an incredible high note. We know you won the championship. Congratulations. Just remarkable. Twice. Twice. When you joined McLaren, it was a very different situation. So you joined in 2017 and you guys were almost last or effectively the back of the grid, right? Yeah, we were at the back of the grid, which was kind of an interesting place to be. Yeah, it's certainly, it's been a kind of long journey.

2:42We liken it more to a quest back to the front because it's not a linear path in Formula One. There are lots of turns, upside down moments, but we'll be back and that feels really, really good. So what changed? How did you help turn McLaren from also ran into, you know, everyone's eating your dust? So I think if you look at our business model, when you go back to where we were on the grid, I think we'd sort of forgotten a little bit about who we stood for back in the day. we'd forgotten who our fans were a little bit. And I think the amazing thing that Zach Brown, obviously CEO, who was new to the business then, he kind of said, where are the fans in all this?

3:20And we were laser focused on really what do fans want. So we went back to our roots, Papaya. It was the color that Bruce McLaren drove in in the 1960s. It gave someone a real sense of purpose and unity and now stands out brilliantly on track. And it's fantastic to see so many people wearing it. I think we put fans front and center of the brand and our decision-making of what we did. And from that, we were able to bring on incredible partners like Google because we had this much bigger audience and that's helped push us to the front of the grid. It's kind of a bit of a virtuous circle. We are where we are now.

3:51It takes time to rebuild and regrow. And I guess then throw in new fans, the sports in incredible health, because we were laser focused on our fans. I think it gave us, we're on the front foot. We were on the front foot to embrace female fans. We were on the front foot to embrace new younger fans as they came into the sport. Because I think we kind of democratized it and we opened it up and made everyone feel incredibly welcome. So you brought in new fans, which brought in new funding, which helped on the technical side. Were there any low points for you along the journey, Wei? There have been many lows.

4:27Just the races when you just keep pushing, but you're never quite there. But I think through all of that, what was incredible as a marketeer, there was always a story to tell. Even though we weren't winning on track, the stories that we could tell appealed. And I remember back in 2021, fans love liveries. That's the aesthetic to the car. And we were nowhere, but we turned up in Monaco in 2021 with a golf livery. And it was quite a big, audacious thing. People hadn't done that. And we did it. And I think from that moment on, we've kind of led the way with so many innovative firsts. And I think as you saw those things build, although at times I was kind of worried, I was like, God, if this screws up, it's kind of on my head.

5:09So it was quite a lot at stake, but they work really well. And I think we've just grown and grown every year learning. Sometimes you learn from your mistakes, right? That's the best way of learning. Yeah, it makes sense. So were you around when Drive to Survive was first pitched? I was. Okay, so Drive to Survive is in my sort of like, talking set of like one of the best marketing initiatives of the last 10, 15 years. I mean, there'll be Harvard Business Review case studies about it. And when it was first pitched, how did you hear it? And what was your reception to it? We were one of the first teams to embrace Strive to Survive.

5:42Others didn't, but I think we recognized it. We'd had a little kind of dalliance, I'd say back in 2017, some unboxed content, which essentially was kind of behind the scenes and fans loved it. It was much difficult to measure these days and technology has come on such a long way but I think we recognize that appeal so when drive to survive came around again like it was it didn't really know how successful it was going to be but it was one that we we went for and I think pretty soon we saw the traction we saw the pickup um and we see the growth and here we are what nine seasons in it's been amazing we we liken it to a 25th grand prix from the value that we get from drive to survive so explain that just expand that a little further?

6:22The exposure that we get for the team gives us as much media value as you would get through a race weekend. Okay. So that's pretty powerful, right? Helps when you have drivers starting to win races and win championships, right? It helps when you've got two rockstar drivers who have mass appeal appealing to the next generation of fans, young and old fans. They appeal to everyone. So my family got into racing during Drive to Survive. I actually went to school right there, Silverstone. And so I heard the cars. I liked Formula One. Drive to Survive turned us on during COVID and we've stuck with it.

6:53But what else have you guys been doing to sort of grow your global fan base? It's such a challenge when you have so few race weekends and they're so far around the world. Most fans never get to a race, right? Most fans never get to a race. And it's like 24 Super Bowls. So as a CMO, it's like the most incredible opportunity, but 24 Super Bowls back to back, like the pace is intense. But we recognize that only 1 % of that huge global fan base ever get to go to track in their lifetime. And we've listened to the fans. We've just had some new data back and what they want, they're craving live experiences and to be closer to the team than ever before.

7:29Like they want to interact with us. They want a sense of belonging, a sense of community. So we focused on some live experiences. Last July, we turned London's Trafalgar Square Papaya. I saw this, yeah. Did you see it? Yeah, like 40 ,000 fans turned up, right? It was insane. I do remember we rocked up in Trafalgar Square on Thursday morning and Zach, the boss, called me and he said, uh-huh, this is quite big. And I said, well, what did you expect? You told me to do a fan event in Trafalgar Square. I think we took it up to a next level and I think everyone was just astonished at the incredible reaction that we had.

8:02So from there, we grew and we've just been racing just back at the end of beginning of June in Miami where we celebrated another fan event in downtown Miami and again, ran a similar event. Gemini were there. We had interactions with fans to design their own helmet using Gemini technology, which was great. And I think, again, kind of brought the very best of McLaren racing to those fans, whether it was female first fashion skews with Reese, or perhaps we actually even had Zach there with dogs. Dogs of F1 were there. So there was a little bit of something for everyone, but I think it kind of gave everyone the moment to get closer to the team on whichever, however they wanted to consume us, I suppose.

8:43So just talk about the balance between McLaren, the brand versus the actual drivers. They're the face of the franchise, I guess. Yeah, they are. You have to balance those two things. We do. I think as a team, like there's definitely no I in team. And I think Andrea and Zach are big advocates. The culture of the team right now is incredible. And, you know, Lando and Oscar in their own right have obviously grown their brands. enormously. But actually, when we go racing and we turn up as McLaren, we are a team. There's 1 ,300 men and women back at McLaren and very much that sense of unity, again, as a marketeer, having them as the kind of heroes and the front-facing spokespersons is dreamy.

9:26But at the same time, you've always got to balance performance of the team as well because they're traveling across 24 races, multiple time zones. They've got to show up races and perform on track. So from a marketing perspective, we have to take the same approach off track as we do on track in that their performance is really important, making sure they're primed, making sure they're ready to go and perform on track in the best possible way. So one of the challenges inside of marketing is you're expected to deliver metrics and results and drive revenue up, right? Yeah. If you're launching a movie like the F1 movie, if it's raining that weekend, people don't go to the movies.

10:00How much is the performance of the team determining your success as a marketer? And how do you navigate around that? Because you have to operate whether you're going to win, lose or anything. And every weekend is entirely different. You never know quite what's going to happen, right? And I guess the beauty of sport is it's entertainment and people watch it for the jeopardy, the escapism. And right now, I hope we're not going anywhere. We've got a long season ahead of us still and all the points to play for. But actually, it's about when you're not winning, you want to stay consistent, be front of mind for people still.

10:32And I think we do that through a couple of ways. One is the kind of always on connectedness. We launched the McLaren Racing Club to our fan base as another way to keep in touch with that 99 % that don't go to races, right? So there's that always on appeal, hopefully feeding you personalized content about the race weekend that's going to appeal to you, which isn't always focused on performance. It might do some great stuff, some crossover to popular culture. You know, your fandom doesn't live in a silo, right? So I think the worlds of sports and entertainment are really good storytelling for us, perhaps when the narrative on track isn't as strong as it needs to be.

11:10And then the good thing about, you know, when you've been racing for six decades as a team, there's always an amazing story to tell. 100%. One of the themes of the pod is that most brands are having to become media companies in their own right. And the passionate fans are super engaged, more so with you than anyone else. You know, the cleaning of the car would be fascinating ASMR. Scraping the tires. We put some content out a couple of years ago, and there's a process in which the tires are scraped. And again, the great thing about data and technology is you can see what appeals to fans. And actually, female fans really like that, interestingly.

11:44They like all sorts of insights and technology and what goes into it. Everyone wants to learn. They want to learn more about our sport. So I read that Formula One is the most popular viewed sport amongst women globally. Fastest growing sports series on the planet for women. Growing 14 % year on year, I think. Okay, that's pretty good. So is that the continued sort of focus for you in terms of growing that female audience around the world? Yeah, I think it's, again, I think we've been really lucky through how we grew the brand. We were always thinking female first back in the day. And I think we were able to wrap our arms around many of those fans once they'd come out of Drive to Survive and they saw the great appeal of Lando and Oscar.

12:26Also, when you look at our partners, That's really important for our partners that they have female customers. So I think that that crossover is really important. So you've done partnerships with Abercrombie and with Reese. With Reese, yeah. And in terms of the design of that clothing, that's skewed towards the women's or mixed audiences? I think both. For Reese, they particularly wanted to grow the brand in the US at the time when we started speaking to them. And the female factor was really important, right? So that ticked both the boxes. But actually, if you look at sales, I think it's now male and female skewed.

12:57And they have a fantastic unisex collection. And so you look at someone like Abercrombie & Fitch or Hollister. I think we created the highest performing tee ever for Hollister in that collaboration. And then what do you look for in a global partner? Like you're trying to sign someone and maybe who's your dream partner you haven't worked with yet? Oh, that's a good question. So we have partners that help us go racing, put us on track and fuel that performance. And then we also have partners off track that help us engage with our global fan base because our fans are our lifeblood. So that fuels performance as well.

13:31I mean, Gemini is fueling data analysis on track, but it's also helping our fan engagement. We've got some brilliant examples, I think, coming up. I don't know if you've seen the latest Lewis Capaldi content that's just dropped. Why don't you tell us about it? Well, a tease has just gone out. So there's more to come just before the British Grand Prix. But I know that Lando had lots of fun filming with Lewis. I think what he does is kind of really normalize Gemini usage every day. just before he gets in a hot lap with Lando. So there's teasers out, but there's more to come. And I think those are really nice, authentic ways to bring our partnership to life for our fans and for consumers.

14:09So the drivers get all the attention. I know that. Just talk about, as I understand it, when you guys won the Constructors' Championship, you got on the podium. You were the one who collected the award on behalf of the team. Tell me about that moment. It was in Miami, right? So it was Miami Grand Prix. Whoever wins that particular race gets the privilege of going up. Someone from the team goes up and collects this constructor's trophy alongside driver or drivers. And in our case, it was both Lando and Oscar. So it was a really special moment. I never expected to get the call up. Got a message from Zach saying, if we win, you're up.

14:41And I actually thought he was joking. Then kind of realized, no, he's not. Crikey, what do I do? Worried if I could spray the champagne. Worried about falling over and becoming a meme. Turns out I can spray champagne and I didn't fall over. So I survived it. it was a really proud moment. Proud because I took the trophy on behalf of the 1300 men and women back at McLaren, which was phenomenal itself. Never expected to be up there. And then kind of came off. And I remember coming off the podium and it also represented all of our commercial partners, right? Because I think people acknowledged when we go racing, they feel the success of the team.

15:17And then social media kind of got quite busy and my phone was buzzing in my pocket and I remember one of the teams showed me a piece from Gemini and said Lou you're an 11th woman on the podium in history and I went what um and that was pretty special so I think for representation it was amazing moment congratulations that was really great thank you why don't we invite a little special guest in why not okay hey Landa I'm doing great welcome to Frontier CMO Thank you very much. Thank you for taking time out of your busy can to come to this event. What's the experience like for you wandering around this event as the face of Formula One, as the face of McLaren?

15:58Everyone's looking at you. Just what is that like? I mean, it's something I think you adapt to over the years when you enter Formula One and you're on TV and you have a lot of partners that you meet over the years. But I guess it also just comes with a responsibility. Like I'm here to also represent my team, represent all the people back home, all the guys and girls that build a car for me to try and win for them. But it's very special because I just get to be with good people and have fun and travel the world. And I think it's always been impossible to call this like my job. Like I started racing because I just love to drive.

16:31I never started because I knew I would be able to earn money and make a career out of it. I started just because I loved it. So the fact I still got to come to these places, come and do cool things like this is a pleasure more than anything else. So most kids grow up wanting to become a race car driver and win the world championship. And you are that kid. You grew up to become the world champion. Congratulations. Thank you very much. What was that moment like? And when did it actually sink in? I mean, I think it's still sinking in now, but it was the most amazing day of my life. I think for me, I think for a lot of the people on my team and also just on the team of McLaren, because for a lot of them, it was their first world championship for drivers.

17:12It was obviously our second in a row for the team. That's an unbelievable achievement. But I think obviously from my side, personally, I had my mum there, my dad, my brother, my sisters, some of my best friends that I've grown up with for so many years that are part of the journey as well. Even though I'm just the one that's in the car driving, the amount of support that I've had outside of that and that is needed in the world of Formula 1 is huge. So the fact that I just got to share all of that and finally achieve that thing that I fought for for, geez, I don't know how many years, 20 years, 19 years from being a kid watching Formula One.

17:51I was watching Lewis, 2007, him and Fernando in McLaren. And I wondered what it would be like to stand on top of a podium one day. And 20 years later, 19 years later, I kind of got to feel exactly what that was like. and that was, it was a beautiful thing. Was there a moment later on, a day, a week, a month when you were like getting out of the shower and you just went, I'm freaking world champion and made the tap of your voice just to yourself? I'm not like the loudest person, but yeah, I said it, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, I put it on my Instagram bio, but like I genuinely woke up and I was like, damn, I did it.

18:30You know, just like that realization of the fact it's a genuine thing. you know for so many years I wanted to believe that it was possible and now it's it's like it's done I've done it we did it as a team and it's just a pretty amazing thing because I think there was 34 to 5 other people in the world that have achieved that so for me to be part of that pretty elite group is something I kind of never believed but I've got to force myself to believe it now it's quite a big moment like turning taking number four off the car yeah putting one on yeah Yeah, it looks way better. Big moment. Four is cool.

19:03You know, one day I'll probably have to go back to four. I hope I don't, but I probably will. It was a huge achievement for the whole team and even for the mechanics to build the car with the number one on. It's something that I think that they're also very proud of too. But you know what's a little bit crazy about F1? Kind of, we all finished the championship, the season, you'll win. Like, it's incredible. But the pace at which we come back to track, like, it's bizarre, isn't it? It's bizarre how just quickly it was like, okay, that's done. Move on. Forget about it. Time to try and do it. We haven't forgotten about it.

19:33I know, I know. Yeah, that's for sure. Let's just talk about that. In the Formula One season, things go wrong, right? Sometimes it's someone crashing into you. Sometimes it's mechanical failure. Sometimes it's any number of things, right? Sometimes it's on you, the driver. Talk about your process, your mental resilience. How do you get back in the cockpit, back in the saddle? How do you keep going with focus and forget what's just happened? That is just a tough thing. I'm sure some people find it easier. Some people find it harder. but it depends who you are as a person. It depends the people you have around you.

20:03I think for me, that was the most important thing. Or the two. The first one is realizing you're going to have the tough moments. Like even when you see, you know, it's easy to see other people on TV and when you see Lewis on when I was growing up and you see all the champions, you never really necessarily see the tougher moments. So you kind of always get that false perspective of how amazing it is. But I can tell you that there's a lot of very tough moments. And so just accepting that this is the case and it'll always be the case. It's never going to be perfect and it's never going to be overly glorious.

20:33But then having just a very, very good team of people around me because I was never the strongest believer, the most strong mentality minded person growing up. Probably still, I'm not now comparing to some people because I didn't wake up every day and look at myself in the mirror and shout that kind of thing to myself. But I just built a very good group of people around me who were there to support me. be there for me. And I want to be there for them. Some of my best friends are part of that group. People I can share it with. But also when I'm down, they're there to kind of pick me up and give me the support that I need.

21:09And for me, that's really been one of the most important things. Tell me about your pre-race routine. Yeah. You are focusing like unbelievably for two, three hours to focus on that race. How do you make that happen? I like to just be as relaxed as possible. So I've been listening to my music. I'll be having a massage I'll have a little I'll actually have a little nap before I go and drive the opposite to probably what people expect like people expect you to maybe be but I hate getting too hyped up before an event so I'll be listening to like yeah music I'll be watching I don't know Twitch or MotoGP or Speak to Gemini whatever it is you know Who's your favorite YouTube creator?

21:49My favorite YouTube creator? I like to watch a mix I mean I love my golf so I saw Bryson earlier Rick yeah I watched Rick as well so we travel a lot you know there's a lot of time spent on planes and things like that so I get through a lot of videos on YouTube I like to end every episode with a little segment signal or noise I'm going to throw a couple of rapid fire questions at you signal or noise you ready signal or noise England will win the World Cup signal what do you think Lou signal okay I got that signal or noise I'm going to start with you first Lou Lando Norris is the best paddle player on the F1 circuit signal right uh signal yes okay absolutely absolutely i like it um signal or noise there is more creativity in driving than there is technical skill um damn that's crazy i think it's signal but i'm just going to say it's noise because for me i don't need to know about those things you know the thing is what we have in formula one is there's someone that's insanely smart in every single position.

22:54I'm good at what I do. Lou's good at what she does. Luckily, I don't drive. That part, maybe. But, you know, there's so many amazing people. Everyone has their own role. And everyone plays an incredible role that all then comes together. So for me, my focus is my job. The noise is letting everyone else kind of do what they got to do. That's a good answer. Lou, thank you. Lando, thank you. Thanks very much. So great to have you here on Front of CMA. Thank you. Pleasure. So before we wave the checkered flag across the finish line of this episode, I want to leave you with three takeaways from my conversation with Lou and Lando.

23:27Think of these as your field notes from the frontier. First, resilience wins the long game. In Formula One, a fraction of a second can change everything. We see the highlight reels of podiums and championships in Champagne. What we don't see is the years of resilience. It takes a team like McLaren to get back to the front of the grid. The road isn't straight. Everyone around you can look faster. There are obstacles on and off the track. For CMOs operating at the frontier, the job is the same. Navigate the twists and turns, stay in the race, and build the long-term resilience that makes those short-term wins possible.