Exclusive interview with McLaren on brand partnerships

PartyPoker has conducted an interview on their blog, where McLaren Racing’s Nick Martin (Executive Director, New Business) shares what the F1 racing team is looking for in their partners, success stories and examples of innovative campaigns.

McLaren and betting group Entain signed a partnership for PartyCasino and PartyPoker in 2021, which has already resulted in several successful initiatives and campaigns over the past two years.

An example of this is the poker tournament McLaren Turbo Series, which took place from 13-28 August 2023, hosted by PartyPoker.

The McLaren Turbo Series is just one of the initiatives to come out of the partnership, and when asked to give other examples, Martin says that “a great one recently, was our Returnship scheme with Entain, which helps to reignite the careers of women returning to roles in STEM. As part of the programme, an initial 10 places were offered to women, at Entain or within our F1 Team, for six months.”

When elaborating on what McLaren is looking for when selecting brand partnerships and recent collaborations, Martin continues: “Another example is what we’ve done together with Entain where we hosted a fireside chat with Zak Brown (CEO, McLaren Racing) and Jette Nygaard-Andersen (CEO, Entain PLC), putting two like-minded leaders together to talk about their role as CEOs and their approach to leadership. This was a piece of content that catered to not only a business audience but also a broader audience where again, we are always looking for ways to engage our sizeable fan base.”

The interview also goes into detail on how McLaren is working with a wide variety of partners and how being present in the digital sphere is just as important as being available for motorsport fans locally and internationally:

“Firstly, we work to maximise visibility for partners across our most valuable inventory, which is our cars and our drivers.

Secondly, we have a real focus on digital. McLaren has led the way in F1 on digital and social, being the first team to join Instagram, the first to join TikTok and the first to launch an app.

At Silverstone this year, we hosted a free Fan Zone in Manchester for our fans who couldn’t be at the race itself.[CF1]  This ran across all three days of the Silverstone weekend and gave people the opportunity to cheer for McLaren and watch together while offering interactive experiences on-site. This was a great activation which was quite accessible and brought papaya to the people of Manchester!”