PARIS — Rochas’ glossy, golden Method 1 automotive will get rolled onto a monitor by glamorous ladies in body-con uniforms and heels. The all-female group’s lead driver spritzes on Audace, the model’s new perfume.
The race is on, each within the marketing campaign clip the place the Rochas automotive revs into pole place to win the gold, and for magnificence manufacturers as they speed up their partnerships with the game.
F1, now in its seventy fifth season, has a giant position to play, rating as the most well-liked yearly sport sequence, with an viewers of 750 million, based on Nielsen Sports activities. Of that, ladies account for 41 % of the fan base, permitting F1 to shed its historically male picture, whereas the 16-to-24 set is its fastest-growing age group.
F1’s sponsorship is up 10 % on-year and has reached in 2025 already greater than $2.9 billion, based on Ampere. Meantime, the game is broadening its attain, now boasting 65 million followers throughout its social media platforms, for example.
“Since 2020, the fan base for F1 has grown 38 %; their broadcast protection within the U.S. has doubled since 2018,” stated Stacey Andrade-Wells, chief advertising and marketing officer at Liquid I.V., the electrolyte drink combine. “This can be a actually rising area for consideration and for manufacturers to have the ability to attain their customers.”
F1 Academy is pioneering for girls in Method 1.
Method 1 by way of Getty Photos
Magnificence manufacturers, additionally together with Charlotte Tilbury and Elemis, have taken observe and turned F1 into a brand new runway.
The game, as soon as elite, burst onto the world stage partly because of the Netflix sequence “Drive to Survive,” which helped draw a youthful and extra various viewers. Social media and gaming have helped, as effectively.
“Sports activities is a technique to hit these audiences extra successfully than conventional promoting,” stated Louise Johnson, international chief government officer at Fuse, a sport and leisure advertising and marketing company.
Magnificence performs a giant position in sports activities. Private care is important to athletes; hair and make-up are highly effective instruments for self-expression whereas athletes put on a uniform, and sports activities and wonder each stand on the intersection of bodily and psychological well-being, she stated.
Sport is on the junction of adjoining passions, too, similar to trend, music and wellness. “Every thing is crossing and bleeding over for the time being,” Johnson stated. “That’s the reason you’re beginning to see numerous magnificence manufacturers coming in.”
“The distinctive factor about Method 1 is it has this chance to stretch throughout sports activities, but in addition leisure [and] hospitality. And [since] it has such broad shoulders, that permits it to permeate tradition,” Andrade-Wells continued. “Magnificence and well-being customers are at all times on the vanguard of tendencies and tradition. What turns into essential to them additionally turns into essential to the manufacturers that they’re attempting to achieve and join with them.”
Like F1, magnificence manufacturers have their sights skilled on China and the Center East as two primary progress markets, identified Olivier Tjon, a neuromarketing pioneer and cofounder of Past Motive consultancy.
“Method 1, simply as a platform, is de facto fascinating to achieve these audiences,” he stated, underlining the brand new races being added to the calendar are positioned in these markets, the place there are cultural variations driving magnificence product gross sales.
“In China, the acquisition of Western luxurious cosmetics manufacturers is usually motivated by the necessity for assertiveness by Chinese language ladies,” Tjon stated. “Method 1 is one thing additionally that you simply strongly affiliate with [being] daring.”
He stated a dominant buy motive in cosmetics for girls within the Center East is to please others, primarily their companions. So it’s attainable they’d purchase into merchandise related to the game to do this.
Neglect Penelope Pitstop of the Nineteen Sixties cartoon “Wacky Races.” That’s historical historical past. Magnificence manufacturers are taking newfangled artistic approaches to ladies and race-car driving — significantly F1.
In its marketing campaign, Rochas exhibits the feminine automotive driver after successful the race — and out-driving a person — proudly holding aloft an oversize Audace perfume bottle as a trophy. The flacon is formed like a ladies’s physique swathed in Rochas couture, with palms on hips, girl-boss model.
Rochas’ marketing campaign for its new Audace perfume options Method 1.
Courtesy of Rochas
“Why wouldn’t it be just for males?” stated Philippe Benacin, chairman and chief government officer of Interparfums SA, which owns Rochas, talking of F1. He defined the concept of the game tie-in is to empower ladies.
That technique has already paid dividends. Audace was launched in France in February, and within the first quarter of this yr, Rochas perfume gross sales rose 13 % to 10.3 million euros. “Audace is driving the expansion,” Benacin stated.
“Method 1 generally is a catalyst for change,” stated Séan Harrington, Elemis’ cofounder and CEO.
The British skincare model in February turned the Aston Martin Aramco F1 group’s first official skincare associate. The three-year tie-in started on March 14 on the Australian Grand Prix, the place Elemis hosted an activation on the hospitality suite for it and Aston Martin Aramco’s VIP friends.
The partnership consists of product collaborations, similar to travel-size collections. The Elemis model title is printed onto the Aston Martin Aramco race vehicles, alongside the likes of Boss and Oakley.
Harrington thought-about the F1 tie-in a straightforward resolution and pure match. “I needed to try to discover a chance for the subsequent 5, 10 years to inject one other layer and one other degree to the model — to offer it a brand new power, a brand new drive,” he stated.
The manager has lengthy admired Lawrence Stroll, half proprietor and government chairman of Aston Martin, in addition to proprietor of its F1 group.
“Right here is an iconic British model with superb heritage, nice legacy,” Harrington stated. “It represents efficiency, luxurious, consolation — so many elements of comparable aspirations we’ve got for Elemis that I felt there’s an actual alternative right here for 2 manufacturers to come back collectively.”
He was struck by how on the Aston Martin manufacturing unit each government Harrington met was striving to win. “I believed: That is good for our enterprise,” Harrington stated. “It is a chance I didn’t need to lose. I used to be extra occupied with it from a cultural facet and what it may change inside my group. That positivity, power, that have to drive to outlive is just not just some phrases. It’s an actual which means of their world. They’re driving to outlive — but in addition to win.”
Like Elemis, the automotive model additionally has a eager deal with CSR. Harrington thought a partnership would make for a successful components. “I’ve been confirmed proper,” he stated. “It has actually modified the sport for us. It isn’t nearly motor racing — this was about tradition, folks and model partnerships.”
The manager believes it goes past conventional branding. “It’s discovering a technique to convey that partnership to life with our purchasers, customers and in addition relationships in enterprise everywhere in the world. That’s what’s so thrilling.”
At latest races in Melbourne, Australia, and Shanghai, Elemis invited wholesalers and distributors, resort and spa companions, and model ambassadors.
“My friends get to expertise being a part of [Aston Martin’s] group — not only a glass of Champagne in a hospitality suite,” Harrington stated. “You’re assembly the drivers and are up shut and private to the group members. You’re within the storage, timing the pitstops with them — you’re in it. It’s distinctive. We’re this over a long term.”
A rendering of the Elemis Aston Martin pitstop for remedies.
Courtesy of Elemis
This yr the Elemis Aston Martin pitstop has grown right into a full-blown “pitstop spa” for Miami. At different races, an Airstream will likely be concerned within the expertise, which Harrington described as one other degree of luxurious on the highway for all of Elemis’ clients.
The model, in the meantime, is growing relationships with drivers — each female and male — and following new drivers’ journeys in skilled sport. “I see no different athlete on this planet that goes by what they undergo,” Harrington stated. “From a strain valve, to a continually always-on perspective, from a bodily, dietary and mental-health perspective, it’s received all of the elements to be so particular to so many.”
Product-wise developments can broaden to diet, well being, wellness, magnificence and rehydration. “We’re initially,” Harrington stated. “Then, in fact, there’s the Brad Pitt film [‘F1’] to come back, which is able to clearly assist with the recognition everywhere in the world.”
He believes the potential viewers for the game is huge. “It’s only the start,” stated Harrington, including Elemis’ tie-in with the Aston Martin Aramco group has already introduced the next degree of recent folks to each manufacturers than they’ve ever skilled with a partnership earlier than.
Final yr, when Charlotte Tilbury turned the primary magnificence firm and female-founded model to be an official sponsor of F1 Academy, the female-only racing championship based by Method 1 that helps ladies drivers, it “despatched a shockwave by the business,” Johnson stated.
Chloe Chong and the Charlotte Tilbury Scorching Lips automotive.
Courtesy of Charlotte Tilbury
Tilbury doesn’t discover it surprising, nonetheless. “Each magnificence and motorsport thrive on innovation and breakthroughs in expertise, and we’re each fueled by our passionate, devoted international communities,” she stated. “Girls have been so underrepresented on this sport.
“After I discovered that 40 % of F1 followers are feminine, but extra ladies have orbited the earth than pushed an F1 automotive, I needed to alter that,” Tilbury stated. “I spotted there was a chance to make waves and champion range, inclusion and illustration past the sweetness business.
“By means of this partnership, I would like younger ladies and ladies around the globe to be impressed to pursue their desires and really feel their most assured,” continued Tilbury, who was launched as a woman to F1 by her father, a good friend of the late, legendary race-car driver Niki Lauda. “It’s the good instance of what I got down to do with my model, which is empowering everybody, in all places to look and feel like probably the most lovely model of themselves by the transformative energy of make-up, skincare and perfume.”
Tilbury defined the influence to this point has been large. “In 2024, we gathered a showstopping international attain of over 14.3 billion, bringing widespread consciousness and engagement with this program,” she stated. Her model itself counts greater than 12 million social media followers.
In 2025, F1 Academy has grown to incorporate a sixth group, which resulted in a 20 % improve of participation within the sport with 18 feminine drivers.
Charlotte Tilbury kickstarted this season in Shanghai, then will proceed to race cities similar to Montreal, Canada; Zandvoort, the Netherlands, and Las Vegas. The model is championing Chloe Chong, the youngest driver within the 2023 subject, who pilots the Charlotte Tilbury Scorching Lips Automobile.
“We’ll have magical pop-ups on and off monitor, with confidence-boosting touch-up stations and far more,” stated Tilbury, who additionally presents drivers merchandise from the Pillow Discuss assortment.
For Worldwide Girls’s Day on March 8, the sweetness model donated the totality of on-line gross sales of the label’s Airbrush Flawless Setting Spray to Motorsport UK’s Women Karting Academy. Proceeds funded, as effectively, the Charlotte Tilbury Scholarship on the academy in assist of 1 lady’s participation in a Membership 100 Karting Championship season subsequent yr.
“Girls around the globe are invested in seeing different ladies thrive and pursue their desires,” stated Tilbury. “As a feminine founder, it’s so essential to me that we assist the subsequent technology of ladies to turn out to be rulebreakers and changemakers. I’m extremely keen about ladies pursuing their desires, feeling their most assured and considering limitlessly. We’re empowering these exceptional younger ladies to interrupt limitations inside the sport and past.”
Liquid I.V. in 2024 partnered with the Miami Grand Prix on a multiyear collaboration because the race’s first purposeful hydration associate. It additionally marked the corporate’s foray into the worlds of F1 and motorsport.
In Miami, Liquid I.V. had a Race Home and in addition carried out a full-city takeover with billboards, gave out samples (that the model dubs “sticks in hand”) inside and out of doors the Paddock Membership and normal admissions areas, and teamed with Hope Hydration to create stations permitting clients to refill water. Liquid I.V. additionally did its first in-field advertising and marketing with branded cyber vans that drove round Miami proffering samples. Altogether, 19,000 got out.
The Liquid I.V. Race Home.
Courtesy of Liquid I.V.
For its second season on the Miami race, Liquid I.V. will likely be on the grounds on Sunday with an much more immersive fan expertise within the Liquid I.V. Race Home.
“It’s really a sensory expertise, the place followers will be capable of take pleasure in our model’s taste and performance expertise,” Andrade-Wells stated. “There’s going to be a chance to actually really feel the transformation from being dehydrated to hydrated.”
Racegoers will be capable of style for the primary time the model’s limited-edition thriller taste, which is available in customized F1 packaging. “They’ll be capable of have numerous enjoyable, get some branded prizes and merchandising that’s up for grabs,” stated Andrade-Wells.
Branded hydration stations will likely be all through your complete campus. To make the expertise extra accessible to all F1 followers, Liquid I.V. is producing behind-the-scenes content material for social media
“We’re doubling down on our partnership and increasing to the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix later this yr,” Andrade-Wells stated. “In an effort to actually lean into that factor of accessibility, we’re going to be doing a nationwide giveaway in retail, the place you may enter for an opportunity to win an all-expenses-paid journey to the Las Vegas Grand Prix.”
There may be additionally a racing recreation on the Liquid I.V. web site, the place folks can customise a automotive and vie with others. On-line, its first cobranded product will likely be accessible, too.
To assist gasoline Liquid I.V.’s full 360-degree expertise, the model will put in place out-of-home promoting, and its field-marketing group is giving out samples in Miami. Some 250,000 are anticipated to be handed out.
“We did see a very important improve in our model consciousness following final yr’s activation,” stated Andrade-Wells, including Liquid I.V. is consistently in search of alternatives to attach with its customers throughout peak hydration intervals.
“With our customers, we deal with 4 completely different utilization events: warmth, train, journey and nightlife,” she stated. “The Method 1 Miami occasion is on the intersection of all 4 of these. Our large precedence is to go larger and higher – to indicate up even in a extra dramatic approach.”
Different magnificence manufacturers, similar to Givenchy, Ralph Lauren and L’Oréal Paris, have signed F1 racers as ambassadors. And an rising quantity are getting in on the overall car-racing motion.
E.l.f. sponsors skilled race automotive driver Katherine Legge within the Indy 500, for example. That partnership was the primary time a magnificence model had been affiliated with the occasion.
“Katherine Legge is proof of our mission in movement: standing with each eye, lip, and face that dares to dream,” stated Patrick O’Keefe, chief built-in advertising and marketing officer at E.l.f. Magnificence. “From day one, we acknowledged a power of nature in her – daring, relentless and unapologetically unstoppable.”
Count on many extra magnificence manufacturers racing into F1.
“It’s not a query of ‘ought to we,’ it’s extra a query of ‘how quickly can we be a part of the grid?’” Johnson stated.
