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STAKE F1 TEAM KICK SAUBER
In 2024, Sauber transitioned its Formula 1 team from Alfa Romeo to Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber (SF1TKS) ahead of the new season, following its groundbreaking title partnership agreement with the world’s leading betting, entertainment, and lifestyle brand.
Having brokered this major deal, SMG was appointed as the rebranded team’s social media agency with a brief to develop a brand new strategic and creative direction for its digital presence, reflecting the fun and fresh characteristics of this exciting new Partnership.
In line with the rebrand, our multifaceted social & digital team set out to create a unique persona and social media personality to match the nature of the team’s new identity, conceptualising and ideating original, innovative and engaging content and messaging for SF1TKS team’s social media channels. SMG’s aim was to surprise, subvert, and entertain SF1TKS’s audience while standing out from the crowd with content that consistently differed from other Formula 1 teams.
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When SMG began managing the SF1TKS channels, the team was, by far, the lowest followed team on the grid. While the rest of the midfield teams sit at 3-4 million, SF1TKS had only 2.2 million followers. Growth here was an exceptionally important KPI and we knew this would require a steady building of team personality through our content, while respecting the legacy of Sauber and appealing to both traditional F1 fans and newcomers to the sport.
Throughout our two years with SF1TKS we grown the Instagram channel to over 3.7 million, moving the team out of last position in followership, as well as producing the highest engagement rate of any of the midfield teams.
Authenticity and entertainment were front of mind, SMG has consistently created and tailored platform-specific content designed to appeal to SF1TKS’s vast and varied audience across its different social channels. In line with this goal, SMG prioritised forging a strong working relationship with the team’s drivers, forging unique online personas.
By understanding what content the drivers enjoy making and, in turn, catering the content to their respective personalities, we succeeded in maintaining a level of authenticity that has helped generate a more genuine bond between the team and its followers.
In addition to running Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber's (SF1TKS) social media accounts, SMG's social & digital team worked closely with our activations team to ideate, facilitate and manage multiple strategic and impactful activations for the SF1TKS team across the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
As Sauber Motorsport closed out its final season in F1, SMG managed closed out the channels with a 'goodbye' campaign, built to set the scene for Audi F1 Team to make their transition into the channels.
