Remarkable Content with Ian Faison Drive to Survive: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Series that Saved Formula 1 Racing with VP of Global Executive Marketing at Salesforce, Kexin Chen
B2B content is often impersonal. It may be clean and polished and dialed in, much like an F1 race car. But as pretty as it is, it may blend into all the rest.
But if you let your audience under the hood, that’s how you win them over. You show them your personality, that there are real people behind the brand.
That’s one of the things we’re talking about today as we take marketing lessons from Drive to Survive. All with the help of the VP of Global Executive Marketing at Salesforce, Kexin Chen.
Together, we talk about letting people under the hood, how confusion equals no sale, and tapping into new channels to open to the door to new audiences.
About our guest, Kexin Chen
Kexin Chen is VP of Global Executive Marketing. In her role, she leverages the latest advancements in media, customer advocacy, and storytelling to spark engagement with CEOs and their leadership team. She’s run high profile programs like the Olympics, F1, and Cannes for C-Suite leaders to collaborate and share their authentic stories of driving change in business, industry, and society.
Prior to Salesforce, Kexin was the second marketing hire at NextRoll where she built and scaled the marketing functions from the ground up.
What B2B Companies Can Learn From Drive to Survive:
- Tap into new channels, open the door to new audiences. Go where your target audience is. If it’s social media, release content on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, etc. That’s often where you’ll find your younger audience members. Kexin says, “[Liberty Media has] done a really good job with focusing on digital engagement and stepping out of how do we actually not just think about the TV broadcast, but also think about all the social channels we have and get these drivers out on TikTok, on Snap, to reach that younger audience?”
- Confusion = no sale. It’s simple: your audience won’t buy what they don’t understand. So make it as easily understood as possible. Use their language. And if there’s jargon, explain it. Ian says, “You have to simplify Everything to its most elemental sort of level. They had to demystify what Formula 1 was to explain like what this whole thing is.” And demystifying Formula 1 has transformed their audience. A 2021 Nielsen study says, “The fanbase has almost doubled since 2017. During that period, the average age of Formula 1 viewers dropped by four years, to 32, and female participation has doubled.”
- Let people under the hood. The success of Drive to Survive relies on the film crew’s ability to get up close and personal with the Formula 1 drivers. To be so ever-present that the teams forget the film crew is there, and be their most authentic selves. This gives viewers a real look at what it means to be an F1 driver. Ian says, “The mentality for this sort of stuff is like, ‘Well, if we let them under the hood, what if they see something bad?’ And it's like, ‘What if we don't let them under the hood and then they never come back?’” The idea is that by letting people under the hood, you attract the right audience and make that product-market fit that lasts. So show people an authentic view of your company and product, and gain your audience’s trust through transparency.
Quotes
*”If we are just trying to sell to [our audience], it's not going to work. And so we have to ensure that we're balancing educating them on the value of our platform and why it's going to completely change their organization. But also we want to build a really trusted relationship and figure out how to arm them with what it's going to take for them to actually be the champion and the star at their organization for bringing Salesforce.”
Time Stamps
[0:55] Meet VP of Global Executive Marketing at Salesforce, Kexin Chen
[1:44] Impact of Drive to Survive on Formula 1
[2:48] Kexin Chen's Role at Salesforce
[4:40] The Marketing Miracle of Drive to Survive
[7:40] The Human Element in Sports Marketing
[14:15] Global Expansion and Strategy of Formula 1
[24:49] Engaging Executives and Building Communities
[33:20] Final Thoughts
Links
Connect with Kexin on LinkedIn
About Remarkable!
Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com.
In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK.
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