Amelia Demoldenberg and the way creators change what F1 partnerships look like.

For years, sports partnerships and the activations that bring them to life have followed a formula most people would be familiar with. A brand partners with a team, an athlete, or a sport as a whole, buys visibility across that property, and builds campaigns to activate their partnership and hopefully get something out of it. 

This model is by no means gone. In motorsport, thousands of brands continue to operate this way, but while brands, athletes and teams have not changed where they are and how they behave much, their audience no longer sits only in one place. 

Fans are now discovering sports they love on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, communities they are a part of, or creators they love and follow. Where personality used to be an outlier in sports fandom in the past, it now sits at the centre of discovery, and this is a slight problem for brands but also a huge opportunity for creators. The last group can change the landscape of sports partnerships, and already is, in a huge way. 

If you’re wondering what this change looks like, have a look at Amelia Demoldenberg’s latest collaboration with Formula 1: Passenger Princess, a video series where Amelia is taught how to drive by Formula 1 drivers (happy to report she is in fact learning and her parallel parking skills are much improved) while teams get to feature the latest car model their owner company can offer the market. 

But why would Formula 1 choose Amelia as a partner? The key part is not simply the size of Amelia's audience, but the relationship she already has with it.

Creator Audiences:

Amelia built her following through Chicken Shop Date with that distinctive style that we recognise immediately. She’s funny and steeped in a perfect amount of awkwardness, and conveniently, her format has always relied on cutting from conversations to brand b-roll. 

Passenger Princess gives Formula 1 access to that world, replacing a shot of chicken being fried with a sleek Ferrari. 

The collaboration also gives Amelia's audience a different way into the sport. Someone who might not sit through a traditional driver press briefing can suddenly find themselves watching Charles Leclerc encourage Amelia to drive beyond 30 miles per hour and talk about his career and team while she hits the petal to the metal. 

That exchange is valuable for both sides. Formula 1 reaches beyond its traditional channels, while Amelia has access to personalities and environments that bring something new to her own content. It is a partnership built around what each side already does well, and importantly, it removes the pressure from both sports and brand.

The creator’s offering, beyond reach:

A strong creator like those partnering with Formula 1, has spent years developing a particular voice and understanding what their audience responds to. Their community knows what to expect from them, and that familiarity creates a level of trust that a traditional advertising campaign has to work much harder to establish.

If we evaluate things honestly, it is simply not possible for a brand like Mercedes or Audi to humanise their product or business in a way that is half as charming as Amelia’s awkward yet smart and lovable personality is. With Formula 1’s increasing social presence and reliance, the opportunity for rights holders and sponsors is therefore much broader than simply putting a creator's face on a campaign.

For sports properties, this can open doors to audiences they might struggle to reach through their own channels. For brands, it creates another opportunity. Instead of using creators to repeat a sponsorship message, they can collaborate with them to find a more natural way into a community. Letting creators be creative is a perfect way to produce good content and brand recognition all in one. 

Good for fans, good for creators, good for brands. 

The future of creator sport partnerships:

As creators take centre stage as the mediators of partnerships between brands and athletes, teams, or sport leagues, the activations of the future will look very different from the established DHL ad in the pre-race show every Sunday. 

The most interesting collaborations will no longer be about putting a brand in front of an audience and calling it a day. They will be about finding the people who already know how to speak to that audience, and giving them the freedom to do it in a way that feels natural, and crucially, funny.

Passenger Princess works because Amelia doesn't have to become an F1 presenter to be a part of it, and Formula 1 doesn't have to become Chicken Shop Date to let Amelia shine. They meet somewhere in the middle, bringing two very different audiences and worlds together.

As sport continues to compete for attention across an increasingly crowded digital landscape, that kind of partnership is likely to become less of an experiment and more of the blueprint. In 5 years, what we call the established model for sports partnerships may well have a creator at its centre.