Meet Honda's 'Racing Spirits' with Lost Boys' Social Campaign Ahead of F1

Honda Racing F1 has unveiled the two ‘racing spirits’ behind its power units for the F1 Australian Grand Prix, as part of a global social push aiming to bring fans closer to its F1 activity. The initiative was created in collaboration with Lost Boys.

The power unit characters celebrate Honda’s rich racing heritage and its single-minded pursuit of success during the 2015 season and beyond. Each has a unique personality, and a detailed, engineered ‘face’ inspired by Honda F1 drivers and engineers of the past.

The two power unit characters unveiled today represent the power units in car 14 (normally driven by Fernando Alonso) and car 22 (driven by Jensen Button).

The racing spirits, which can now be found on the Honda Racing F1 global digital platform created by DigitasLBi, have their own Twitter feeds: @hondapu14 and @hondapu22. Both power units will tweet updates before, during and after Saturday’s race in Melbourne, reacting to the racing action in near real-time. Each of the characters will continue to tweet throughout the F1 season, and the featured characters will sync with Honda’s actual power units on the grid, with new characters launching whenever the Honda team’s power units are changed, revealing unique and nuanced new personalities to engage the crowd.

Lost Boys has also developed an influencer engagement strategy to support the campaign.

Honda announced the appointment of DigitasLBi and Lost Boys to its global digital business for Formula 1 in January this year. The agencies are collaborating with Honda to develop and execute a digital strategy positioning Honda as the brand at the forefront of Formula 1.

Under new regulations, Formula 1 cars are now powered by two energy recovery systems in addition to the turbocharged V6 petrol engine. The complete system comprising the engine and energy recovery systems is called the power unit.

Akiko Itoga, Communication Manager, Honda R&D Europe (UK) Ltd, said: “Our power units are infused with racing spirit – they’re the embodiment of the commitment to racing perfection that’s in our DNA. We are excited to bring them to life as characters, and for fans to feel the pure emotion and passion we put into our technology and races. We cannot wait to see the power units take off as the action unfolds in Melbourne.”

Simon Gill, Chief Creative Officer, UK at DigitasLBi said: “We’re very excited about the formal release of our beloved power units. They have been crammed with rich racing spirit and packed with real creative love. We feel they represent a unique way in which to engage the crowd and introduce many new people to the smart technologies in these high performance hybrid engines. We’ll be cheering them on through the entire 2015 F1 GP season.”