Lewis Hamilton - The Brand
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Joined: Mar 2002
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From: Ulaanbaatar
Lewis Hamilton - The Brand
I received a re-tweeted message from Gordon Murray about Lewis Hamilton's testing at Jerez, which led me to take a look at Lewis's web site.
www.lewishamilton.com
I don't have a great deal of interest in Lewis Hamilton - I don't fit the brand demographics of his fan-base and I'm not his target audience - but I do like to check-out brands, brand identities and their respective web sites. If this is 'yesterday's news', I apologise, but this was the first time I have seen the implementation of the 'new' Lewis Hamilton brand. Quite an exercise.
"XIX Entertainment came to Safari Sundays looking for a mark that would immediately identify the essence of Lewis Hamilton. Our solution was to
create a mark that embodied the sleek sophistication of the race way predator, and bring it to life."
More about it here:
http://www.safarisundays.com/#/lewis-hamilton-f1/
The branding and positioning certainly appears to press all the 'right buttons' for association with the products essential to the brand's target audience lifestyle; cars, fashion, music, watches... no sign of of a bespoke fragrance yet, but it can'r be far off!
But upon reflection, the content of Lewis Hamilton's web site; the imagery, the partners (Bombardier aircraft is one...) and his illustrate lifestyle, this could almost be perceived as a fairy tale; as relevant to real world lives as Disney character movie.
The Lewis Hamilton brand; is it the brand of an iconic F1 driver - as the brand developers suggest - or a nascent, 'premium' lifestyle brand, which has a strong F1 connection whose long-term aspirations are focused elsewhere?
It appears to me at least, the brand, its values and its positioning is a million miles away from the majority of that of the 1,000s at an F1 circuit and the common-a-garden TV audience; I wonder if the target audience for the Lewis Hamilton brand actually exist, or is it merely an exercise in branding an ego?
James Hunt's 'brand' was so much easier to relate to... 'Sex. The breakfast of champions'
www.lewishamilton.com
I don't have a great deal of interest in Lewis Hamilton - I don't fit the brand demographics of his fan-base and I'm not his target audience - but I do like to check-out brands, brand identities and their respective web sites. If this is 'yesterday's news', I apologise, but this was the first time I have seen the implementation of the 'new' Lewis Hamilton brand. Quite an exercise.
"XIX Entertainment came to Safari Sundays looking for a mark that would immediately identify the essence of Lewis Hamilton. Our solution was to
create a mark that embodied the sleek sophistication of the race way predator, and bring it to life."
More about it here:
http://www.safarisundays.com/#/lewis-hamilton-f1/
The branding and positioning certainly appears to press all the 'right buttons' for association with the products essential to the brand's target audience lifestyle; cars, fashion, music, watches... no sign of of a bespoke fragrance yet, but it can'r be far off!
But upon reflection, the content of Lewis Hamilton's web site; the imagery, the partners (Bombardier aircraft is one...) and his illustrate lifestyle, this could almost be perceived as a fairy tale; as relevant to real world lives as Disney character movie.
The Lewis Hamilton brand; is it the brand of an iconic F1 driver - as the brand developers suggest - or a nascent, 'premium' lifestyle brand, which has a strong F1 connection whose long-term aspirations are focused elsewhere?
It appears to me at least, the brand, its values and its positioning is a million miles away from the majority of that of the 1,000s at an F1 circuit and the common-a-garden TV audience; I wonder if the target audience for the Lewis Hamilton brand actually exist, or is it merely an exercise in branding an ego?
James Hunt's 'brand' was so much easier to relate to... 'Sex. The breakfast of champions'
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 23,264
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From: Nottingham
as with all successful drivers it seems he puts everything into it, to the detriment of any real character.
more successful than Hunt but not as interesting
i'm not sure of the point of that website but then i'm not as influenced by some regarding brand, does he sell t shirts and shit?
more successful than Hunt but not as interesting
i'm not sure of the point of that website but then i'm not as influenced by some regarding brand, does he sell t shirts and shit?
Thread Starter
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 6,326
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From: Ulaanbaatar
He doesn't seem to sell anything per se... at the moment.
The image of the Lewis Hamilton branded carbon fibre headphones on the brand development site may be a clue of what's to come...
... as well as a branded IWC...
... and a special edition Mercedes...
The image of the Lewis Hamilton branded carbon fibre headphones on the brand development site may be a clue of what's to come...
... as well as a branded IWC...
... and a special edition Mercedes...
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Joined: Oct 2004
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From: sideways with an OWL!
Looks like he's got his eye on the longer game. His idols are people like Jay Z and P Diddy who have their own aspirational lifestyle brands.
He's something completely new to F1. We've had this sort of thing before, but it's all been rich white boy. He's the first to target the urban/street/black demographic from F1. I think this is a very canny move and Bernie's wet dream probably as he's all about where the money's coming from. Although whether this money is flowing into F1, or just into the "lewis" brand is up in the air at the moment.
It leaves us middle class white boys a bit non-plussed generally, but is very interesting.
Closest parallel I can see is Brand Beckham.
He's something completely new to F1. We've had this sort of thing before, but it's all been rich white boy. He's the first to target the urban/street/black demographic from F1. I think this is a very canny move and Bernie's wet dream probably as he's all about where the money's coming from. Although whether this money is flowing into F1, or just into the "lewis" brand is up in the air at the moment.
It leaves us middle class white boys a bit non-plussed generally, but is very interesting.
Closest parallel I can see is Brand Beckham.
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Thread Starter
Joined: Mar 2002
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From: Ulaanbaatar
Indeed. Beats was acquired by Apple in 2014, for a somewhat incredible $3bn.
It was seemingly 'valued' at only $1bn by those in the know, but the rumour was that the purchase was to enable Apple to get its hands on the Beats music streaming service.
Mark Webber too:
It was seemingly 'valued' at only $1bn by those in the know, but the rumour was that the purchase was to enable Apple to get its hands on the Beats music streaming service.
Mark Webber too:
