Formula E’s great live experiment, the Evo Sessions, kicked off today at a truncated version of the Miami International F1 Aerodrome around the Hard Rock Stadium in the Floridian city.
11 regular Formula E drivers will act as mentors and benchmarks for the same number of assorted celebrities/influencers in an activity event that will be drip-fed across various media over the coming weeks and months.
The opening media gambit at the track today was led by Formula E’s CEO and CMO – Jeff Dodds and Ellie Norman. They addressed the media (including Formula E Notebook) to give an initial outline as to just how experimental this initiative is.
“This is a really unusual event for us,” said Dodds.
“So, it kind of feels like a race event, but doesn’t feel like a race event. For us, it’s a one-off moment in time.
“I joined Formula E about 18 months ago, and I had this kind of thing in my head, which was rather than keep fishing in the pool of motorsport, trying to convert Formula 1 fans to love Formula E, which is a very challenging job because it’s a very small pool, how could we make the pool bigger?
“How could we take our product out to a much larger fan base and see if we can attract new interest in Formula E? And we had a gap open up in our calendar that gave us the opportunity to test something new.
“For us, this is a complete test event. So far it’s going very well, but no one’s actually been in a car yet, so no one’s had the chance to crash anything! But so far going remarkably well in terms of video views and what we hope to get out of the event.
Dodds added that the event so far “feels very disruptive” and that he thinks “it’s a first for all of us; first for us, first for our drivers, first for our team, so we’re all trying to come to terms with how it will play out. But yesterday I spent all day talking to the teams, talking to the drivers, and you get this lovely energy around the place, nervous energy from the people, the influencers that are about to get in a car and test what it’s like to be a racing driver.”
He’s right that there is a nervousness among teams and drivers. It’s one thing for Sebastien Buemi to look disconsolate while Jamie Chadwick is damaging his car in an unfortunate shunt with Envision’s Zak O’Sullivan in Jeddah last month, but quite another for ‘Draco Malfoy’ to reduce his car to component form a quarter of the way into a season that has already proved difficult.
But while Buemi’s ‘dementors’ might circle around for a while, even the elements are not soothing his and his teams’ concerns. Rain and inclement temperatures will add significantly to jeopardy and should the track glisten with precipitation then the rookies surely can’t venture out furnished with full 350kW beans.
This is yet to be seen but Dodds is upbeat and continued to riff on the nerves theme.
“There is nervous energy from the teams that are worried about their precious little cars, and hopefully they’re going to make it around in one piece.
“I think there’s a bit of nervous energy from my team here because it’s the first time this has ever been done in motorsport, or really any sport I can think of,” he said.
The ambience is good though and there is a vacation feel to this event, one that budget wise is now probably nudging the range of putting the 2022 emergency Marrakesh EPrix on.
“Yesterday was super cool because you’ve got all these influencers who are amazing at what they do. I think combined followership, probably a quarter of a billion followers amongst those 11 influencers, and then you get ‘Mr Beast’ turn up!
That referenced the undisputed ‘Daddy of all social media influencers’ – Mr James Donaldson, who trades under the ‘Mr Beast’ moniker and who, while not in the Evo Sessions, will be filming some content with Dan Ticktum and the CUPRA KIRO team this week.
He turned up with his own pack lunch and assortd decals as he promotes one of his new ranges of products, which will no doubt find themselves on to the CUPRA KIRO Porsche today.
But as Dodds attests “they’re (the influencers) staring at the racing drivers in awe, then they’re staring at Jimmy in awe, and it’s all kind of a bit of a love-in.”
So far, so good.
How is FE Measuring Success?
Formula E’s investment into Evo Sessions is significant and so is some of the disruption to teams, who although not racing for another six weeks (and at a track down the road from Miami) have had to pivot on their programmes both ongoing in Gen3Evo and in readiness for Gen4.
So how will success be gauged? We asked Ellie Norman this morning.
“We’ve got a couple of key metrics. Number one, video views, but actually I’d say the second most important thing is from those video views is ‘are we reaching a new audience’?
“So, the indicators today, super, super positive, but so far a new audience to Formula E has been 69% (Instagram). So that’s a brilliant indicator that it is having the right impact.”
As well as those measurements there is also real data of engagement and re-amplifying the content.
“Obviously we measure the real data, but then there’s also just that vibe,” added Jeff Dodds.
“You get that sense of your currency, your social currency, whether people are talking about you. And when you’ve got this Evo event, the Mr. Beast stuff too, we actually have a couple of other announcements that we’ll drop in the next four or five days as well.
“We’re just trying to get that bell wave of energy around the championship.”
Inspired or insipid? Time will undoubtably tell. But for now the positivity around the event feels genuine and perhaps this pioneering event will more than just plug a hole in the calendar and actually become an event that starts something genuinely interesting and progressive.
Additional reporting by Georgia Williams
