Formula 1 presents creativity conundrum for brands and sponsors
They know how to make noise in Formula 1. This week, motorsport’s premier championship explodes back into life across its ever-expanding media universe.
Twenty-four high-glamour race weekends, driving peerless broadcast innovation. A mould-breaking, news-making Netflix docuseries. An official film starring Brad Pitt, the highest-grossing sports movie ever made and an Oscar nominee to boot.
More will be watching than ever, at lights out and beyond. The series’ own figures pegged its global fanbase at 827m in 2025, up 12 per cent year on year, with audiences growing at race venues, on television, on YouTube and on social media. Almost half of all fans added last year were female, while 57 per cent were under 35.
Brands have noticed those numbers – and opportunity brings company.
Formula 1 has 11 global sponsors in categories right across the product and demographic spectrum – from luxury goods to chocolate snacks – while licensing deals with Disney and Lego have inspired playful new content and experiences.
And each of the 11 teams have dozens of their own partners – in some cases, more than 50. Last year Ampere Analysis calculated the total annualised value of F1 team sponsorships at $2.12bn, representing around 72 per cent of everything spent by brands on the sport.
Masses of Formula 1 partners
Over 400 commercial deals were reportedly agreed in the 12 months up to February 2026, with as many as 323 individual brands active in F1 last year. Plenty are racing towards the same target market: US-based partners signed 34 per cent of all new deals in 2025, while the tech and financial services sectors each account for 20 per cent of all new sponsorship agreements signed in the current cycle.
That creates an intense, potentially overwhelming contest for attention – one never more obvious than in the weeks before racing begins. Each season brings new cars and new colourways. Sponsors can see the impact their brand will make on the world’s fastest-moving billboards. These are busy spaces.
Audiences are ruthlessly selective and have a lot to choose from. This is at the core of conversations we have every day. It’s why we built MSQ Sport + Entertainment to help our clients break through – why we work to make brands impossible to ignore while the world is watching.
Formula 1 presents that challenge in microcosm. A huge global fanbase, growing and diversifying every year, is presented with different messaging and content at every race. In a vibrant media moment, there are high-spending sponsors who could well end up as clutter.
There are plenty of traps to fall into. It can all begin with how a logo settles into that livery: the wrong branding blend either clashes with a team’s identity or dissolves into the mix. The same balancing act recurs at a cultural level.
Brands should respect the heritage of their team partner, the personalities and values of the drivers, and the unforgiving competitive pressures on the team’s staff. But they also want commercial results in an arena filled with hundreds of other businesses.
Standing out
So how does a sponsor break from the pack? It can start by drawing on other qualities celebrated in Formula 1: meticulous planning, attention to detail, and the sense of a shared mission.
The top performers, meanwhile, will find a winning edge: a strong, effective and original idea that cuts right through the field.
The possibilities are enormous. Between driver and team channels, and independent creators and media, there are always more routes to the right audience. Every Grand Prix weekend presents a chance to bring people together in some quite amazing settings.
There is a lot to be said for a strong early-season impression, but not when it taps a budget better spent on strategically important territories down the stretch. If regional relevance matters, then cultural intelligence and sensitivity are paramount.
Sponsors need an appetite for risk – for a boldness and creativity that sets them apart. At the same time, they cannot lose sight of their commercial goal. The competition is fierce but the best will be seen – and heard.
Steve Martin is a founding partner at MSQ Sport + Entertainment