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Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff reveals that the Mercedes F1 team helped the company’s advertising value rise to $4.5 billion.
The German manufacturer returned to Formula 1 as a works team in 2010 and after some growing pains reached the top of the sport in 2014, just after Wolff took over as team principal a year before.
In a Sky Sports F1 interview the Austrian revealed Mercedes has greatly profited from its involvement in Formula 1.
“I looked at some data and you could see the audience we were able to generate, the advertising value for Mercedes and all the partners on the car,” said Wolff.
“In 2012 we had an advertising value of, believe it or not, $60 or 70 million, and today we are at $4.5 billion, and that has unlocked so much potential.
“A Mercedes today is perceived as a sporty car. It wasn’t 10 years ago. Of course, the road cars you buy, the AMG cars, they have an edge. We have become a really cool brand.
“I think we [the F1 team] have played our part in helping the brand change its image by being in Formula 1, by being successful and triggering some emotion because fundamentally this is what you want to trigger, with all your marketing activities: an emotion.
“This is what we do.”
