The Art of Selling: Sponsorship 101
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The Art of Selling: Sponsorship 101
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By David Cameron, Italy
Atlas F1 Magazine Writer
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Table of Contents includes links to each chapter
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Very little is known about the dark art of sponsorship by the average fan, and consequentially its importance to the sport is downplayed by most. But, if you don't have the money, you don't go racing - it really is as simple as that. The marketing departments of the ten teams in Formula One are the most vital components because they get the money, and everything else flows on from there. Atlas F1 needed an expert to make it all clear, to teach us all there is to know about the art of selling.
It had to be Jim Wright. One of the most influential money men in the Formula One paddock, 43 years old Wright is the Head of Marketing for the BMW Williams Formula One team, and is responsible for all sponsorship servicing, merchandising and licensing. If you follow the money trail, you'll find him at the end of it doing another deal for the team.
Wright had his first taste of Formula One in 1981 when he worked for the ATS team for a year. He then became commercial manager for Eddie Jordan Racing, working with the team for five years through their Formula Three and 3000 programmes before setting up his own business in 1986, a motorsport consultancy, where he focused on finding sponsors, managing drivers and coordinating national series for eight years. A chance meeting on a train changed that. "I met [then Arrows team boss] Jackie Oliver on a train," Wright recalls, "and he said 'would you ever come and work in Formula One?' I said I'd love to - that's what I've always wanted to do. So I got an offer to come and work for him in an acquisitions role, but I wasn't sure [about it]; Arrows didn't have the best of reputations then - they never have had, have they? - so I phoned Richard West, who was at Williams as head of marketing at that time and I'd known for some years, and I said 'what do you think?' "Richard said, 'Jesus, you're actually thinking of giving up your own company?!?' I said 'yes, I am'. So he said 'don't go and work for Arrows - come and work for me'." Wright accepted the offer, and the following year, as West moved on, Wright himself moved up, taking over the role which he has held at Williams ever since. And, despite the fact that his name is not known to many of the fans, he is considered by far one of the strongest and most involved men in Williams - and in the F1 paddock as a whole. In fact, WilliamsF1 have come a long way since Frank Williams and Patrick head set up the company in Didcot, Oxfordshire, in 1977. One hundred and eleven wins, 122 pole positions, seven World Driver' Championships and nine Constructor' Championships make them the most successful team, on a per race basis, in the history of the sport. The success continues to this day, and the team is in strong positions in both Championships this year. To cap it off, the team has been making headlines this year with new and innovative sponsorship deals, further contribution to an image of success. "Yes, we're doing well - on the track and off the track, so there's a good feeling and buzz about the place," Wright says. "But when you work for Frank and Patrick you're always reminded that you're only as good as your last result."
Can Williams hope to match such an effort? "Pfft," Wright smirks. "Not a hope in hell. No way. "People write about us and they perceive us as a big team, and we are in comparison to a Jordan or a Sauber or whatever, but I think people don't understand how big a gap there is between us and Ferrari and Toyota in terms of personnel and resources - it's a massive gap. And McLaren as well - McLaren are way ahead of us in terms of resources and personnel. "You know, in football parlance, it's Aston Villa taking on Manchester United or Liverpool or Chelsea, and I think it's easy to think of us as one of the big teams - and I guess we are relative to the others - but we ain't the size of the big ones. People say, 'oh, Williams have gone off the boil', 'Williams haven't won a championship since 1997', blah blah blah, but no one says 'they're doing a good job with the resources they've got', and you know, the gap is huge - we're not talking five million dollars between us, we're talking tens and tens of millions of dollars in income between us, and that's terribly difficult to make up."
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Born in Reigate, Surrey, and now married with two young children, Wright has a long involvement with the combination of money and racing - starting off with tracking down sponsorship for Belgian driver Thierry Tassan (now the race commentator for Belgian TV) before a brief period of running "my own little Formula Ford team", as he calls it.
Appearances can be deceiving, and for all WilliamsF1's success they do not have anything like the resources some of the other teams enjoy. "You saw last week - Ferrari had four cars [testing] in three different locations. To support that from a position of having personnel, engines, chassis, spares - whoa! - we couldn't do that. I mean, we ran two cars on four days, which are eight-car days. They did twelve car-days last week alone! In one week, twelve car days!"
