Heading into the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix, The Ritz-Carlton wanted to share the thrill and excitement of its partnership with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team. Building off the success of a live-painted mural in 2022, the brand wanted an even more impactful art performance to headline 2023 — something that would creatively connect the experience on the track to The Ritz-Carlton, Budapest in the heart of the city.
In partnership with Artist Partner, Louis-Nicolas Darbon, The Ritz-Carlton approached its 2023 activation by live painting a custom livery on a life-size replica of a W14 race car parked in front of the hotel. The painting and performance would become an off-track point of interest, enhanced to an exciting new level through an appearance by George Russell. By pairing highly-visible F1 art with a visit from one of the sport’s most prominent athletes, The Ritz-Carlton, Budapest would become a must-visit spot during race weekend, and an essential part of the Grand Prix conversation.
Goals for the activation:
As planned, Louis-Nicolas transformed the replica W14 with a pastel, summer-inspired colorway, turning it into an intriguing anchor for the appearace by George Russell. In front of an expansive crowd of adoring racing fans, Russell added his iconic #63 to the car with help from Louis-Nicolas, then handed out merchandise and interacted with lucky onlookers.
From the painting experience and Russell’s visit, we created two tentpole videos, focused on the summer-inspired art from Louis-Nicolas and the thrill of Russell spending time with fans at The Ritz-Carlton, Budapest.
The appearance video takes Russell from inside his suite to the streets below, where a selfie stick and a wide angle camera paired with drone footage offered a unique point of view for an F1 driver’s time with Mercedes fans.
The weekend’s art-themed video looked at the world from a literal paintbrush-eye-view, as Louis-Nicolas Darbon brought his bright colors to the W14 along with visual motifs linking dripping paint, ice cream, and an ideal summer sport experience in the European capital.
The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team took part in posting about the experience as well, sharing George Russell’s appearance on their 11.4M follower Instagram channel.
To further heighten visibility, our Budapest Grand Prix art experience unfolded on digital and social media with a dedicated paid spend, amplifying posts across both The Ritz-Carlton and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s channels.
Our primary KPI for this campaign was awareness, measured by Impressions and VTR. The results from this metric were a complete success.
In total, the content across both owned and earned channels generated:
Additionally, The George Russell appearance video whitelisted on Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s channel generated a 21% VTR (300% above benchmark).
These numbers reflect how we effectively built awareness of the partnership through social media, and the power of on-the-ground activations to drive attention on social media. Through our impressive VTR and dozens of comments linking The Ritz-Carlton, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, and the Hungarian Grand Prix, our approach successfully made the partnership a part of the race weekend conversation.
