341 linear meters of winning

Following a bleary-eyed train ride through the suburbs of South West London we were led into the McLaren Thought Leadership Centre, a high-tech amphitheatre reminiscent of the Bridge aboard the Starship Enterprise, with no less than two screens per person and our own personal iPad.

Working within IBM’s performance marketing team and being a car obsessive, this had been a society event I had been looking forward to for weeks.

Following an impressive display of the multi-sensory audio and visual capabilities of the Centre, the day was introduced by the Marketing Society’s Stephen Maher, who within his brief introduction mentioned bravery, leadership and team work. Three underlying themes that recurred throughout the event.

John Allert, McLaren’s CMO set much of the brand context, how they would not be telling us how to innovate, but rather demonstrating how McLaren do it. He spoke of the famous “341 linear meters of winning”, which we all got to see upon leaving the centre and heading to the main building. John shared the 12 values that underpin McLaren; that in their entirety are “bigger than winning”.

At a time within the society where we are discussing and debating “Brave”, John’s words resonated, he spoke of “the winning eclipse, of being iterative and innovating”. As a practitioner of agile marketing the words felt familiar, and I perceive McLaren as an organization that is “agile” without needing to expressly say so.

John’s keywords included “bravery, defiance, courage and audacity” and of McLaren “doing better tomorrow than what we’ve done today”.

Rob Bloom, McLaren’s digital director took us through the digital journey that McLaren have been on. It was good to hear how McLaren have truly embraced the world of social and AR to truly engage with their passionate fans.

Rob talked about McLaren’s “always on narrative” and of how they use digital channels to provide “behind the scenes insights” which has led to real fan engagement.

He spoke of putting “authenticity at the very heart” of their digital communications and of how McLaren have been able to show the earned media value of their social activities. Again, high performance and agility were used to describe their digital team behaviours. Digital at McLaren has to be “meaningful, engaging and of value”, something all of us as marketers should strive for.

Working for IBM I did wince a little at the line that there is “as much insight in 4 Tweets as 4 terabytes of data”; but I know what Rob meant.

In my ignorance, I was unaware of McLaren’s activities outside of motor racing and supercars, however, Duncan Bradley from their applied technologies introduced us to the vast range of areas they work in, from sporting equipment (bobsleighs to bicycles) to medical equipment. Key themes raised here included “faster data and improved performance”, “rapid data acquisition” and “breaking boundaries” which to a digital marketer in a performance marketing team really resonated.

Simon Roberts, the chief operating officer, McLaren Racing spoke of how McLaren are “in the business of time” and of how critical timing is to winning. Simon spoke of “creativity under extreme pressure” which was very similar to rapid iteration within agile marketing. We were then treated to Simon’s GBOs (glimpses of the bleeding obvious). These are all great mantras for performance marketers, ranging from “high performance teams are not always comfortable places to be” to “the best way to kill creativity is to create a treadmill”.

Following the presentations, McLaren took the attendees to their main building where following lunch we got to witness two society teams attempt the “pit stop challenge” and then to tour their vast trophy collection, a testament to their relentless pursuit of excellence. The final visit was to the production room, where we saw the absolute craft and attention to detail put into the production of their supercars.

By Paul Taylor, digital experience manager, IBM