PR is all important to Honda Simon Fuller, famous for making American Idol and the Spice Girls famous, will now get to work on improving Honda's F1 image. His '19 Entertainment' company has penned a ground breaking five year contract with the Brackley based team, which is now fully owned by Japanese carmaker Honda, aimed at enhancing the squad's image via entertainment. "This is exactly the direction the teams should be taking," Bernie Ecclestone enthused to UK's Guardian newspaper, "to broaden the entertainment and sporting appeal of Formula One to a global audience." Fuller's first ideas to uniquely market Honda, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, however, will probably not be seen until next year. Honda's F1 principal Nick Fry said: "The competition now for an audience is not just within motor racing but comes from (TV show) Desperate Housewives and Chelsea Football Club." Fuller named his company '19' after the 1985 Paul Hardcastle song, which refers to the average age of American soldiers in the Vietnam War. Source GMM CAPSIS International I'm baffled by this deal. I shudder to think what Simon would possibly try to do with Jensen and Rubens..............................
Nothing is gheyer than that phone thing last year with Button. If that is what we have to look forward to....
Perhaps they are going to start "F1 Idol"... F1 drivers ripping wanna be's that show up to race their Ricers.
I think Eddie Jordan pretty well exhausted the concept of style over substance in Formula 1. If Honda want more attention, spend the money on the team, not some over-paid, over-hyped PR mogul. Granted, he's the man responsible for Spice Girls and Idol. So how exactly does that translate to Grand Prix racing? Are they going to target that 11-14 year old teenybopper girl market?
You couldn't have said it better! The direction of F1 now days is losing the real roots of racing - the car, the team and competition. It's really sad. I am glad that I got to enjoy racing a long time ago when times were different. Bret's comment in an earlier post "I bet they could start improving their PR by winning races... novel concept..." is wonderful idea too. Carol
its a viscious circle..... they have to improve their brand image to attact more sponsors. more sponsors = more money and more money could possibly mean better results. i'd imagine that ...getting sponsors is hard with ... esp with the banning of tobacco ads. dont get me wrong .... i completely agree that the primary focus is and always should be racing .... but this may be a way to help. i'm cool with it as long as they dont distract the drivers by making them do stoopid pr crap. (some pr is necessary ...but i hope they dont go overboard and make it cheesy)
"F1-er's Wives". Wait till he gets into the Brazilian connection: "Little Auntie" flogging Rubino when he DNFs? F1 Soap Opera: As the Stomach Turns.
I thought the F1 Soap Opera was named "A Better Way Forward," and starred Michelin last year at Indy...
