Collaborate Guides Us through Its Goodwood Festival of Speed Activations

If you haven’t heard of Hispano Suiza, you can be forgiven. The Spanish hypercar brand appointed Collaborate to create a real-life activation at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2024 as part of its global strategy to unveil the hotly anticipated Hispano Suiza Carmen Sagrera, the base cost of which is €2.5 million before tax. So, it’s not for the masses.

The Carmen Sagrera is the third model in the company’s range of hyperlux, electric hypercars. The brief from the brand was to deliver an interactive, immersive experience to highlight craftsmanship, technology, and the story behind the brand’s eclectic vehicles: the pleasure of belonging to the unique.

“It's quite an exquisite brand,” says Lucy Bairner, head of growth at Collaborate, but if you don’t know about it, you’re invited to find out – whether or not you can afford the price tag. “For a brand with a very exclusive customer base, it has a generous spirit of wanting everyone to experience it,” she says. 

The activation was a chance to showcase the car itself, presenting it in a way that invites this kind of exploration. “We were trying to cater to the VIPs who are going to be buying the car and also invite the public the chance to get up close and personal with the car,” she says. “I think the common red thread that runs through everything – sound, fabric, light – plays out really nicely, visually. II's also synonymous with the brand, the red thread that you can see through its launch.” 

It was the space for a dynamic launch to take place, before the car rolled off the stand and made its way up the iconic Goodwood Hillclimb track.

Ben McMahon, Collaborate’s founder and managing director, loves Goodwood for the access it gives people to phenomenal cars like the Carmen Sagrera. “One of the aspects we love about the spirit Goodwood has achieved is its democratic openness to celebrate with everyone, the car, product, the brand,” he says. “Because that could be a pop-up dealership in Mayfair with two security guards on the door. And you're not going in.” This activation was definitely not that experience. “Everyone is encouraged to go forward, learn more about the brand. It’s generous and invites openness.” 

The Collaborate team knows that. Ben talks about how the team that produced the Hispano Suiza activation travelled to the brand’s home in Spain to learn the essence of the carmaker. “Hispano Suiza as a brand is almost like an LVMH of Spain,” says Ben. “It owns golf courses, hotels, restaurants, super luxury fashion. So, to really understand the spirit of bringing that experience to life, the team spent some time at some of its other events. When it serves a drink, it's a work of art.”

Also in the world of automotive manufacturers that you probably haven’t heard of, Hongqi is a Chinese brand that came to Collaborate with a brief only weeks before Festival of Speed for the brand’s debut at the event. Available in Europe but not in the UK yet, this luxury car brand has a reputation in China as a car often used by politicians and dignitaries. So, the goal is building some baseline awareness of the brand.

“This is about inspiring the FOS audience about who the brand is and its luxury offering,” says Lucy. “We had maybe three weeks for the team to turn it around from concept to production. And it's an amazing job. It's just a great example of working quickly to meet client needs – helping Hongqi engage with fans.”

Ben is fascinated by Hongqi’s strategy at Goodwood, coming to a UK event when it doesn’t sell its cars in the country yet, using it to leverage the brand position in Europe more broadly. “Whilst the physical stand's important, we're working far more on the content, because Hongqi is using that content to drive its marcomms back in Europe to say, 'Look, we're not just a highly successful luxury Chinese automotive. We're in Europe, at Goodwood Festival of Speed.’” 

Collaborate likes to work with long-term partners and this is just the start with Hongqi, says Ben. “At the moment as an activation the space is traditional, conservative, dealership-style, and this is about being on a journey together and understanding the two- or three-year plan. And next year, we're going to talk to the CEO about how we're going to bring the brand essence to life so it's not just product.”

The Chinese autos industry is exploding, and Ben is watching with interest. “Where they are in terms of technicalities, manufacturing, speed of advancements in all areas – it’s all phenomenal. Interestingly, those companies are predominantly run by fintech investors,” he says. “We see a really interesting role for Collaborate and other agencies to play in that field, helping them understand how to take their perceived brand and transform to play in new markets.

Collaborate has been working with Randox for five years. “In essence, it’s a B2B brand – a solution for diagnostic healthcare technologies,” explains Ben. And it’s become a brand consumers are also getting to know. A byproduct was its biochip testing array, allowing 44 different tests to be done within 20 minutes from a droplet. It’s basically streamlining and making massively efficient diagnostic procedures on a whole range of health impacts. Which becomes a consumer product.” 

When it started working with Collaborate, Randox was introducing its offer to consumers, wanting to bring better healthcare through diagnostics, not treatment. “That's kind of aligned with every healthcare professional in the world, I suspect,” says Ben. “But at that stage, most people thought it made bubble bath.” It’s true that there is only one letter difference from a brand that does, so you can forgive people for that confusion. 

Now Randox is the partner of the Festival of Speed Future Lab – a platform through which to introduce wider stories of technology and science innovation to the world’s biggest annual motorsport and automotive celebration. The exhibition aimed to spotlight ‘Technology for a Better World’ featuring a curated line-up of 23 innovative international companies, laboratories, and pioneers. 

Randox’s activation was at the heart of that, with a challenge that invited people to step into a Crystal Maze-style pod and try to catch pink balls to win a prize. Randox also presented its new diagnostic machine: the RABTA. At the event, visitors were able to get a sense of what the RABTA machine is, how it works, and the benefits of signing up for a health check there and then. “They're surrounded by some of the latest technology. There's a kind of kindred spirit in that space of pioneering technology. That's why it fits so well with Randox being a partner in that space,” says Ben.

“I love the activation so much,” he continues. “We've been on the journey with Randox, taking its brand from a B2B product to what you saw here - a fully immersive, interactive, playful experience.”

Lucy also loves the evolution that this activation represents for the brand. “I love that for what could be perceived as a dry topic, Randox is really open to fun and engaging ways of bringing its brand to life – like this ball machine.”

“Norton heritage meets cool design process,” explains Lucy, summarising the creative challenge of its compact but classy activation at FOS. “How do we tell a story in a 10x10-metre space and convey that iconic British heritage? That's a nice example of how we've taken one idea and played it out through the whole stand. Creating an environment where Norton brand ambassadors can shine a light on the real people in the design process, get people on the bikes, and then help story tell across everything to flow into socials.”

This year Ben was thrilled to get hands on with the British brand and showcase its craftsmanship. “Historically, the story has always been about the product, which you can understand because it's beautiful, it's got great heritage and it's a motorbike,” says Ben. “But actually we're trying to create a lifestyle brand. So, it's your merchandise, it's a cool place to hang out. I was there at nine o'clock this morning and that's exactly what was happening. People were just hanging out because they love motorbikes, inspired by the Norton vibe. It wasn't just a tent full of bikes.”

The place of the ‘selfie moment’ in brand activations today is well reflected in the FOS 2024 Norton activation, where the company’s light tunnel that’s used to inspect every detail of finished bikes was repurposed into a place to pose on a motorcycle and get a cool Polaroid to take home. “This is a drum that I've been banging for a while. Content has to have context,” says Ben. “We definitely recognise that kind of takeaway memory enhancement piece. But trying to make something of it, not to stand in front of something for the sake of it. In terms of physical experience, it's come full back around to people wanting to walk away with a Polaroid. Gone are the days of doing digital and a hashtag, giving away your email address. It's a barrier. Be confident with the brand. If people want to talk to you, they'll talk to you. If they want to hear from you, it's up to them.”

Collaborate’s work for Singer Vehicle Design at FOS 2024 was a professional highlight for Ben for a number of reasons. The beautiful showcase for its custom Porsche 911s reimagined the drama of an art gallery display to reflect Singer’s unique craftmanship and dedication to design. But knowing the backstory was crucial to getting it right. Ben shares his admiration for the British rock-and-roller who went to California to follow his dreams and while he didn't quite make it as a guitarist, he was fond of doing up cars. “A friend asked him to work on his 911,” says Ben. “He made something beautiful. And then founded Singer. The backstory is quite cool. So, for Collaborate’s values of doing ‘cool shit with cool people,’ there's alignment.” 

Collaborate launched seven years ago and was originally specialised in creative production. And that is still in the way Ben and his team approach an activation like this – with campaign strategy baked in. “A thread that goes through the entire agency is we know our nuts and bolts. We are builders and creators. We don't let somebody else get on with it after we come up with the idea. That Singer activation is a true representation of something that is just simple and exquisitely made. You’ll find no better paint finish on an experience anywhere else at Goodwood than that simple car stand. And that's why I like it. Because it's made by our craftsmen in a simple way. So, it's a kind of a reminder. Interactive, digital, AI, web3, all have a place. Yet, sometimes simple beauty is what you need.”