Fan Engagement in Motorsports: A Case of the FIA World Rally Championship

Abstract

Social media success is increasingly being linked to profitable relations between sporting teams and their communities of fans. Through a case study of RallytheWorld, Volkswagen’s social media campaign 2013-2016 for the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC), this paper provides sports marketers with relevant practices on how to develop social media strategies and building relationships with and between the fans. Drawing upon theories of community facilitation and ‘transmedia storytelling’, as well as the method of autoethnography, our finding is that RallytheWorld, through its audience engagement techniques provided WRC fans with a new experience while respecting the championship’s sporting traditions. This combination, we argue, made RallytheWorld a qualitatively better offer to rally fans than comparable social media campaigns in the WRC.

El patrocinio como factor condicionante en el desarrollo de las carreras de los deportistas de élite españoles.

“…Por otra parte, cada vez resulta más habitual que una empresa patrocine eventos o los organice, proporcionando el material necesario a los deportistas. Esto ayuda a reforzar la imagen de marca, de modo que se relacione con la competición en sí y no con los productos que ofrece (Kunz et al, 2016;Naess y Tickell, 2019).…”

“…Red Bull). Esta es una forma de reforzar, a través de un uso de las redes sociales dirigido a una amplia comunidad de aficionados, su imagen de marca, que se acaba relacionando directamente más con el riesgo como concepto que con el producto en sí que se promociona (Kunz et al, 2016;Naess y Tickell, 2019).…”

The Case of Formula E

“…A confessional tale penned by DHL's sustainability director (FE's logistics partner) and business school lecturer Manoella Wilbaut, it specifies the values and mission of Formula E. The book's subtitle is Sustainable Development fueled by Innovation, with the content divided into three sections (Wilbaut, 2015). The first section is about thinking differently about consumer adaptations and caters to the values of Generation Y, rather than emulating the grandstand culture of Formula 1 or the working class atmosphere of the WRC (Bradley, 2017;Naess, 2014;Naess & Tickell, 2019). The second part concerns technological progress and explains electric mobility solutions that can ramify the automotive industry and urban transportation in depth.…”

“…From an innovation perspective, however, tradition and commercialization can in some cases be considered as allies. This perspective has been explored in the context of the World Rally Championship (Naess, 2014(Naess, , 2017Naess & Tickell, 2019), but recently another motorsport championship has entered centre stage which may serve as an ever better example of this claim: Formula E (FE)-an all-electric single-seater racing series (Fig. 1.1) resembling Formula 1 in appearance, flair and technological advancement, but with a clear sustainability message.…”

Powerful Owners and Powerful Legacies. What Drives Change in the World Rally Championship?

“…The days when rallies could be significantly longer, like the Safari Rally in the 1980s, are gone but rallies have been able to keep their unique road characteristics like with fast gravel of Finland, winding tarmac of Monte-Carlo or rough roads of Turkey. These roads and country cultures have been captured by the WRC through transmedia storytelling campaigns like the RallytheWorld campaign from Volkswagen (Naess & Tickell, 2019). While it was considered that the change from linear TV to a streaming product enabled the media product to fit the sport, rather than the sport changing for the media, some media aspects resulted in sporting change.…”