To celebrate the launch of the inaugural The Race Media Awards we are asking industry veterans to celebrate the best marketing campaigns they have seen in motorsport, together with the programme they have been involved in of which they are most proud. Next up is The Race Media’s COO and co-founder Andrew van de Burgt.

During my career as poacher-turned gamekeeper-turned poacher–turned whatever I am now, I’ve been involved (directly or indirectly) in more comms and marketing campaigns than I care to remember.

Some were small-scale and a great success – holding a moving press conference on electric bikes around the Battersea FE track for example, and some were massive and still talked about now – I was at Jaguar Racing during the time of the ‘missing’ diamond at the Monaco GP.

In my eyes, a truly successful campaign is one that leaves a long and lasting memory, and for that reason, it’s hard to beat the Goodyear posters that used to run in Autosport in celebration of their 150/200/250th F1 wins.

The idea is simple – just a side-on drawing of the race-winning car on an A2-ish poster. But the execution was delightful, and they have had pride of place on my walls for many years. Plus, I am able to reel off those Goodyear winners in a way I simply can’t for Michelin, Bridgestone, or Pirelli.

The best I was involved in

I was at home waiting for my taxi when the phone went. It was Jeremy Hart who was in Greenland, my ultimate destination too.

“I’ve got some terrible news. The iceberg has flipped and exploded!”

Wistfully, I reached out to the handful of journalists who were set to accompany me. “I’ve got good news and bad: the bad news is the iceberg has broken up. The good news is we weren’t on it!”

At this point all seemed lost. But a ton of effort had already gone into getting the Formula E car to the Arctic, creating the bespoke livery, and testing the studded tyres.

Following a few recces, a glacier inside the arctic circle, one that’s disappearing at a staggering rate as global warming accelerates, was identified, and the plan pivoted from running the car on an iceberg to letting it loose inside the Arctic Circle.

While I’ll always be gutted that I didn’t make it to Greenland, three million YouTube views – a fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary and arguably the spark of inspiration that lead to the creation of Extreme E later, I’m happy that it made its mark.

It’s this level of creativity, originality, and impact that I want to see rewarded in The Race Media Awards.

To learn more about The Race Media Awards, click here https://theracemediaawards.com/