Formula E is partnering with London startup Grabyo to bring the digital experience to fans and help accelerate the growth of its digital audience. As well as using Grabyo Studio to share real-time highlights from the live broadcast to Facebook and Twitter, for its next race in Berlin it will deploy Grabyo VIP to involve the teams and drivers in the production and distribution of native video.
The inaugural championship of the electrically-powered car FIA Formula E event took place in Beijing last September and it brings street racing, with ten teams and 20 drivers, to nine cities across the world. It has from its inception set out to be the most digitally focused and accessible championship globally. FanBoost, for example, gives fans the opportunity to vote for their favourite driver to receive an extra speed boost during the race, while incentivising the drivers and teams to build their social fan bases in order to generate votes.
Having tested Grabyo’s real-time video sharing platform to bring fans timely content from the race on social media, Formula E is now partnering with the London startup to share live highlights as well as use its newly launched Grabyo VIP mobile app to engage the drivers and teams in social video creation and distribution.
“Grabyo is at the forefront of real-time native video and it was clear to us that they had the same vision as we did,” commented Ali Russell, chief marketing officer at Formula E. “With the ability of talent to drive much greater engagement than traditional rights holders on digital platforms, we knew we needed to involve the drivers and teams in media distribution. Grabyo VIP is much more than an app it is a social video ecosystem that incorporates all our talent in content production and their social fanbases into our distribution network.”
The newly launched Grabyo VIP mobile app powers multi-platform distribution of native video as well as the ability to share native video with integrated sponsorship and advertising assets. It is available to all verified users on Facebook and Twitter. It supports rapid discovery and re-sharing of premium video content that has previously been distributed across the Grabyo platform by broadcast and rights holder partners. VIP users can follow the partners’ accounts on Grabyo VIP to access the videos, which are surfaced in-feed within the app and updated in real time. Grabyo VIP is available for download on Apple’s App Store for Twitter and Facebook users.