The Super Bowl captures mass attention, making it a powerful marketing opportunity for all brands, not just consumer ones. By incorporating relevant themes, even "boring" B2B companies can significantly boost engagement because the topic is top-of-mind for their audience.

The 'Drive to Survive' series did more than boost viewership; it fundamentally repositioned the Formula One brand. Data shows F1's overall brand equity grew 30 points across all categories, shifting its perception from niche and affluent to culturally cool and mainstream, especially in the US.

Apple's media strategy involves attaching itself to a cultural phenomenon whose momentum was built by another party, like F1's resurgence via Netflix's 'Drive to Survive'. This capital-efficient 'barnacle on a whale' approach allows large companies to enter new content markets by capturing existing hype.

Unlike similar documentaries for golf or tennis, "Drive to Survive" succeeded by combining the high-stakes physical danger of F1, the international glamour of its locations, and the complex business and engineering drama behind the teams. This multi-layered narrative appealed to a much broader audience, including engineering nerds and business enthusiasts, not just sports fans.

Recognizing that the vast majority of its fanbase will never see a race in person, McLaren invests heavily in bringing the experience to them. This includes large-scale free public events and ensuring drivers are accessible, turning passive viewers into active community members.

Netflix's documentary "Drive to Survive" successfully converted casual viewers into F1 fans by providing deep narrative context. Apple, despite securing F1 rights, lacks this powerful, built-in content pipeline. A single movie cannot replicate the 60+ hours of storytelling that bootstrapped a new generation of fans, representing a significant strategic disadvantage for growing the sport on its platform.

Ramp's Super Bowl activation succeeded because it was a multi-touchpoint campaign, not a single ad. They combined the TV spot with on-the-ground events like a tailgate party, media outreach to Adweek, and viral social media stunts with celebrity lookalikes, creating multiple opportunities for engagement and impact.

The Super Bowl is a massive cultural moment. Even 'boring' B2B marketers can capitalize on this by incorporating relevant themes and language into their campaigns, regardless of industry. This taps into audience top-of-mind awareness and can lead to a significant lift in engagement.

Recognizing that only 1% of its fanbase ever attends a race, McLaren focuses its marketing on the other 99%. The team invests heavily in free public events and digital engagement, even changing its iconic car color based on fan feedback, to build a loyal global brand far beyond the racetrack.