Where is the real opportunity for Formula E as it heads to its big influencer media experiment in Miami this week?
We know the framework of the plan in that it involves 11 big name celebrities that have been embedded with teams and will be trained up before being unleashed on a specially adapted time trial track in and around the Hard Rock Stadium later this week.
The individual journeys will be filmed and detailed in real time and also for a documentary later this year.
But what is the thought process behind it all and what will success for the event - which will likely cost Formula E at least 75% of what an average race would cost to put on anyway - look like?
What are the real aims and objectives?
It’s almost six months since former Formula 1 and Manchester United chief communications officer Ellie Norman joined her former Virgin Media colleague Jeff Dodds at Formula E Operations.
Her remit is relatively straightforward: build the name of the world’s only all-electric world championship and in her own words “make it easy to find and hard to leave”.
The Evo Sessions formed in the mind of Dodds late last summer and by the time Norman officially joined in September, the constituent parts of it had already been put down on paper. Then it was thrust into Norman’s in-tray and started to get fully baked at the end of 2024. Since then, the marketing and media departments at FEO’s Hammersmith base have been whirring briskly. That it has all crystallised in conjunction with the start of the 2024-25 season isn’t ideal, but the ‘Evo Sessions’ time has now arrived, so it’s time for Formula E to make it all count.
“The Evo Sessions kind of very much falls into the build our fame and make us easy to find campaign,” Norman tells The Race.
“We can take our sport, our drivers, and the cars out to a broader audience that just haven't discovered us yet. Therefore, something like Evo Sessions and the creators that we've selected with their audiences who follow them, really align to where we're seeing new fans and growth come from.”
Most sports businesses are searching for more innovative and progressive ways to reach new audiences. Doing that through evidencing how talented the athletes are and how advanced the cars are is a huge leg up for Formula E to achieve new additions to its growing fanbase.
This overall perception is what Evo Sessions is hoping to achieve. Surfing on the fan-waves of vastly recognised creators, ex-athletes, actors and automotive commentators and influencers is like a potent amplifying attack mode for Formula E to use off the track as well as on it.
But does it need to be a regular fixture to truly get a return on a considerable investment for Formula E?
“I think success is not for this to be a ‘one and done’,” says Norman.
“More broadly, there is the data in the marketplace and particularly with really brilliant measurement research firms such as Magic Numbers. It's run by [well-known economist and marketing industry expert] Dr Grace Kite, and so there's a lot of data that has been substantiated that shows the value of an influencer programme. I think one of the really important things is - first of all - understanding the data and the impact that can have.”
Norman is known to have shared her respect for Dr Kite’s white papers on econometric projects to her colleagues at FEO, particularly the business development intelligence team there.
That will include how a return-on-investment for initiatives like ‘Evo Sessions’ can be harnessed with additional awareness and investment in Formula E from new consumers and enthusiasts from many diverse backgrounds.
“Typically, what we see is when you have influencers, when they really know their audiences, their engagement rates are pretty phenomenal,” adds Norman.
“So that's where I think the work of really crafting and getting under the skin of, and understanding demographics, but much more the engagement rates, the affinity associations or what attitudes and behaviours does the creator have and their audience have, and actually how does that align into Formula E?
“When we think about Formula E, from my perspective, we are accessible, we're inclusive, we're progressive. We are about innovation and the future.
“I think when you take that even further, you do start to get into a place where you understand our fans a little bit more, so there is a real affinity to this kind of open progressiveness.
“They do want to try new things, perhaps they are an early adopter from a tech point of view and much more open-minded. So, it's taking that attitude and behaviour and then saying, ‘well, how does that align into these different influencers?’”
What could Evo Sessions success look like?
Norman articulates an interesting phrase during her interview with The Race.
“A tactic for us to build our fame.”
The context of that is a lead into what success might look like in the days, weeks and months after the Evo Sessions dust has settled.
“The question then comes into how you make us easy to find?” adds Norman.
“So, from a lot of the fan research that we've been doing, one of our jobs is to provide our fans with confidence through giving them the knowledge and the understanding of Formula E.
“From the ‘Evo Sessions’ itself, there'll obviously be the content and you'll see the creator driving the car, but they're spending time also visiting the teams, going to the factories, and doing the sim work.
“For me, actually that's starting to give the creators that depth of knowledge and understanding about the sport. Then the creators being able to talk in their authentic voices starts to do the job of just adding more depth as well.”
Even Formula E’s natural detractors and sceptics admit that the newest strand to motorsport does not have a paucity of topics amidst it.
Technically challenging with advanced software and management of energy, momentous accelerations via All-Wheel-Drive, award winning and industry leading sustainability credentials, multi-manufacturer storylines, pound-for-pound one of the strongest driver line-ups in world motorsport and a sporting framework that plays right into the lap of the overstimulated modern age of consumption.
“Creators are like, ‘wow, this is actually quite tough to get up to this level’ and for me, success then looks like a creator being able to actually start to tell those stories to their audiences and to really unlock them,” Norman continues.
The practical penetration then for Formula E’s ‘Evo Sessions’ idea then is to how it can build on the successful elements of what it achieves this week and in the ‘after sales’ period in the coming months.
As well as the content that will come after the event itself, the seven weeks after that before the Formula E camp is moved on to Homestead in mid-April, there will by then be details of its documentary series chronicling stories of individual drivers from last season’s campaign. Although the ‘Evo Sessions’ is completely unrelated, the fact that it's being held in the US could be hugely beneficial if the TV series has a big-name streaming broadcaster, as has been recently speculated upon in the paddock.
Then there’s the legacy question. The one-off, short-term outlook is explicitly being discounted at the moment.
“Can we then work with those creators, on a long-term basis versus this being a ‘one and done’ because the more interest that we can bring to Formula E, the better in terms of actually growing the awareness, the appeal, and the general fan base of the sport,” says Norman.
That will depend a lot on how much of an authentic voice the celebrity participants have on the Evo Sessions. Lazy Draco Malfoy and his Quidditch scoring stats (Harry Potter actor Tom Felton is among the celebrity drivers) will only go so far. There has to be substance to the investment in time and effort via FEO and the teams in all of this, surely?
“I think, to be truly effective, and to really get those engagement rates they have with their communities we have to ensure they can have their authentic voice,” opines Norman.
“I'm almost completely confident in the fact that I think for Formula E to unlock the success that we want for the series, we have to take some big bets and we have to be innovative.
“My level of confidence as to whether it will be successful is high on the basis that the creators that have been selected and even from the announcement post so far [Norman was speaking at the Jeddah E-Prix last month] what's been super interesting looking at the data is 66% of our visitors, unique viewers, into Formula E's Instagram channel are brand new to us.
“The views in terms of an absolute number are one thing, and we have to make this bigger than a race would be.
“For me, that is about access, about knowledge, understanding.
“It's feeling closer to the teams and drivers. But for a new audience, it's that interesting hook to bring them into our world. And that is by us taking ourselves out in new and innovative ways.”
