F1 Driver George Russell should be a travel influencer

and here's why...

(image: Mercedes AMG F1 Team on Instagram)

George Russell and his team have developed a very well-polished lifestyle brand, especially after his move to Mercedes where this fits their brand as well. Russell attends events such as Wimbledon, the Rugby World Cup, Martin Garrix concerts, and more. Plenty of F1 drivers attend these or similar events, but George Russell’s engagement almost doubles on posts about attending these events. 

Average Instagram Engagement: 6.67% 

Engagement on lifestyle posts: 11.87% 

Avg. Reach on X: 46.94% 

Avg. Reach on lifestyle posts: 67.08% 

Russell currently does sponsored posts for Mercedes (new road to Vegas campaign), Tommy Hilfiger, INEOS, and more. I think a new opportunity for him, however, would be creating content around his travels. He recently went to Paris and in this post in front of the Eiffel Tower, he received over 803,000 likes and 860 comments. This is an engagement rate of 16.73% and is one of Russell's most liked posts. 

Russell also posted about attending the Rugby World Cup opener with INEOS. This post received an 8.4% engagement rate (over his average). Recent X post about his favorite aspects in travelling to Japan reached 1.4 million, 70% reach!

This on top of his other posts and a gap in the market for a true F1 travel influencer provides the perfect opportunity for Russell to build his brand even more. 

If I was on his team, I would be creating content from the travel you're already doing, as well as adding new grassroots and local partnerships with unique restaurants or entertainment venues in the places he travels to. Russell doesn’t have TikTok, so this would be an opportunity to use his credibility to target a new platform.

Creating short form video content good for TikTok’s and Reels focused on; how he travel's (road trip with Alex Albon?), where he goes while in a new city, and other aspects of his daily life would fulfill the gap of a true travel focused influencer in Formula 1 as well as further develop his polished lifestyle brand. 

There’s a variety of sponsorship and content opportunities within this kind of branding. Partnerships would lead to more brand awareness and positive associations for brands, as well as increased engagement. His content would need to be done well, it would need to look organic and would take a lot of work from his team at first to ensure it's well crafted and fit's his current content plans, but there's a lot of potential upside as well.

Originally posted on LinkedIn in November 2023.