Ideas I Love # 1: Drive to Survive

Massively slow to the party on this one, but following recommendations from several friends I started watching Drive To Survive on Netflix this week.

It’s incredibly compelling telly - and we’ve quickly got through the vast majority of the first series.

Now, here’s the thing - I’m not really into F1. I occasionally watch highlights, but i’m not exactly what you’d consider to be a diehard fan. In fact, I’ve found races that I’ve watched recently to be quite turgid affairs.

I’m not sure how this documentary series came into being - but at the heart of it is a brilliant comms idea, one which answers a challenging brand question that i’d wager the team at F1 are attempting to deal with : How do we get people to care about F1 when it’s increasingly seen as boring and predictable?

The answer - we’ll create a soap opera unpacking the relationships behind the races, explore the tension of the pit lane and show people what goes on behind the scenes.

A simple solution - but an incredibly effective one. In a world where attention is in short supply, this is magnetic.

For all the talk of ‘making a documentary and get it on Netflix’ that goes on in our industry at the moment (and there is a lot of that) this is a brilliant example of how that solution works in practice. It is also a demonstration of just how much commitment you need to make for it to work - time, access, honesty are all in plentiful supply here.

Yes, it’s great TV - but it’s also great media thinking, providing an impactful, effective answer to a big brand problem.