W Series Social Data Proves It's Not The Size of the Audience that Matters
Strong focus on social media is a benefit to W Series sponsors
With the W Series starting earlier this month in Miami, I’ve been impressed with the great content being put out by the series and its teams.
While the volume of content and size of the audience isn’t what F1’s is, when we break down the numbers a little bit deeper, we find that the social media audience is engaged and brings higher value to sponsors than F1.
Again, these numbers are relative to the audience size, but impressive nonetheless. Folks that follow W Series properties on social media are nearly two times more likely to actually interact, and that leads to $18 more value per post for sponsors.
Diving deeper into some of the data, I’ve identified some brands that would be wise to look into working with the W Series. These findings are based on the W Series social media audience and their affinities to the brands:
Citizen Watches — this is a brand that W Series followers actually over-index 48x. This means that compared to the average social media user, a W Series follower is 48x more likely to follow and engage with Citizen Watches.
Virgin Galactic — another very high over-indexing brand at 43x. With VG’s push to launch three private space flights a month, a premier sponsorship of the W Series would be great PR.
Ally Financial — a NASCAR and IndyCar sponsor but also an NWSL and women’s soccer sponsor. Ally is fiercely loyal and even doubled down when things got tough for the league. The affinity to the brand has a factor of 21x.
Vodafone — already involved in Extreme E and Formula E, Vodafone actually over-indexes with the W Series audience by a whopping 30x in multiple countries, including the UK, Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, and Germany. No brainer category.
ShopTo — a leading online video games retailer in the UK known for their “5 Minute Dispatch” over-indexes the W Series audience over 40x!
Earlier this month, W Series announced that for its first double-header in Miami, Hard Rock International would be its title sponsor.
Hard Rock International promotes diversity, recognized for this by Forbes Magazine’s Best Employers for Diversity. Meanwhile, W Series aims to encourage and build limitless opportunities for young girls and women in the motorsport industry, which coincides with the inclusiveness of the brand’s ‘Love All-Serve All’ motto, supporting the hiring and career progression of women. The Hard Rock International Brand is recognized globally with hotels, shops, casinos, and cafes in 68 countries across 253 locations.
W Series’ Chief Executive Officer, Catherine Bond said this about the partnership, “Hard Rock – a brand which, like W Series, champions diversity and creating more opportunities for women – is the perfect title partner for our opening double-header as we continue to make lots of noise in the USA”
Additionally, the all-female championship announced they will partner up with ESPN for the coverage of all qualifying and race sessions. W Series has its longest race calendar for its third season, with 10 races across eight supported Formula One Grand Prix weekends.
Already growing and with plenty of room to expand, the W Series is a great bet to invest money into women’s motorsport.
There is little or no correlation between social engagement and purchases though, reach is always the goal for a business and Formula 1 cannot be matched on that right now within Motorsport.