{"id":21921,"date":"2025-01-28T05:53:39","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T05:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=21921"},"modified":"2025-01-28T05:53:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T05:53:41","slug":"behind-crypto-exchange-okxs-winning-bet-on-mclaren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=21921","title":{"rendered":"Behind crypto exchange OKX\u2019s winning bet on McLaren"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">Partnerships are forged in fire, or so the saying goes, and for the McLaren Formula 1 team and the cryptocurrency exchange OKX, the beginning of their years-long partnership came about during some less-than-ideal conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">The year was 2022, and at the time, crypto was crashing, and McLaren was solidly middle of the pack. \u201cPeople weren\u2019t really familiar with us in 2022,\u201d OKX Global CMO Haider Rafique told Marketing Brew. \u201cIn 2023, people began to be familiar, but they were also focused on the poor performance by McLaren.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">A few years later, things are looking up for both organizations. At the end of 2024, McLaren won its first constructors\u2019 championship in almost three decades, and OKX is looking at a more crypto-friendly administration in the US.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">\u201cWe wanted to align ourselves to the winning spirit, and when we looked across the grid, McLaren was one of the oldest teams, but they hadn\u2019t won a constructors\u2019 championship since 1998,\u201d OKX Global CMO Haider Rafique told Marketing Brew. \u201cWe were like, \u2019Not only will millions and millions and millions of people repeatedly be exposed to our brand through the McLaren F1 partnership, but more importantly, if they crack a win, gosh, we\u2019re going to look like heroes. We\u2019re going to look like we were part of that journey.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 ekFpgi\">Pit stop<\/h2>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">Part of that journey included establishing a new brand identity. Shortly before the partnership with McLaren, OKX had rebranded from OKEx, and brand awareness was \u201cvery low, almost negative,\u201d Rafique said. Beyond that, the crypto industry was struggling to reach people outside of \u201ccrypto natives,\u201d he said, in part because of restrictions limiting the platforms they could advertise on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">\u201cDistribution in crypto is very challenging,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen Google doesn\u2019t allow you to serve ads, when Microsoft doesn\u2019t allow you to serve ads, when Facebook makes it very difficult\u2026you only just have two channels: the Apple App Store and X.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">Enter sports marketing, which Rafique called \u201cthe ultimate distribution channel.\u201d In 2022, OKX became a global partner of Manchester City, resulting in 6 billion impressions during the first year of the deal, according to Rafique. But he wanted to go beyond soccer and was convinced F1 was a sport to help further grow the brand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">\u201cWe needed people to very quickly\u2026find out the name OKX and get exposed to it over and over again,\u201d Rafique said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">The first year of OKX\u2019s deal with McLaren, which includes a front-and-center placement on the drivers\u2019 race suits, a primary position on their helmets, and on the livery of their cars, resulted in 1 billion impressions for OKX, Rafique said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">It\u2019s not just OKX that\u2019s benefiting. \u201cOur partnership with OKX\u2026has also been instrumental in helping us get back to the front of the grid,\u201d McLaren Racing CMO Louise McEwen said in an email. \u201cFor the past three years, OKX has believed in our vision for the team\u2014and it\u2019s the investment and commitment from our partners, including OKX, that has enabled us to achieve an incredible turnaround.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 ekFpgi\">Overtake<\/h2>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">After a challenging season for McLaren in 2023, which ended with Ferrari edging it out of the top three in the constructors\u2019, 2024 brought with it \u201cthe bull market for McLaren and the bull market for crypto,\u201d Rafique said. In addition to branding on the cars and uniforms, OKX built out additional efforts with McLaren figures in its marketing. Drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri and CEO Zak Brown were featured in OKX\u2019s \u201cMy Fabric\u201d campaign, in which athletes, coaches, and sports execs talk about their life stories.<\/p>\n<div class=\"style__InlineSubscribeWrapper-sc-9efdcdad-1 iwvSXp inline-subscribe\">\n<div id=\"inline-subscribe\" class=\"style__RoundedContainer-sc-59d9816-0 hEwJGY\">\n<h5 class=\"inline-subscribe\">Get marketing news you&#8217;ll actually want to read<\/h5>\n<p class=\"inline-subscribe\">Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">OKX has also found ways to boost positive brand association, a key KPI for the brand, through its work with McLaren, like redesigning car liveries (aka the cars\u2019 paint jobs) that include sponsor logos. Last year in Monaco, McLaren and OKX collaborated with Senna Brand to create a livery in honor of Brazilian F1 driver Ayrton Senna, who died 30 years ago while racing in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Rafique said it was very well-received by fans (and that a LinkedIn post announcing the livery was one of his best-performing on the platform).<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">McEwen said \u201cthe Monaco Senna campaign was an extraordinary success and a proud moment for McLaren,\u201d too. In fact, it was the team\u2019s \u201cmost successful marketing campaign ever,\u201d she said, having generated more than 470 million impressions, more than 36 million engagements, and almost 180 million video views.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">McLaren and OKX\u2019s deal expires at the end of 2026, but Rafique said he would like OKX to extend it another five years beyond that. In 2025, he hopes to work on additional campaigns with Norris, and said he might even have a Super Bowl ad up his sleeve, potentially a PSA giving \u201ca nod to the people who\u2026protected our industry\u201d during the crypto-critical Biden administration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">Super Bowl or not, another two years at least with the F1 team currently atop the podium serves Rafique\u2019s ultimate goal of expanding the audience for OKX and crypto more broadly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-31cb6c8c-8 eIOiAk\">\u201cI really believe for the industry, we\u2019ve got to do the thing that doesn\u2019t come naturally to us,\u201d he said. \u201cCrypto and the crypto bros have been so much in their echo chamber\u2026I don\u2019t want our company to fall into the trap of just speaking to the echo chamber.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingbrew.com\/stories\/2025\/01\/27\/mclaren-okx-crypto-formula-1-sponsorship?utm_source=&#038;utm_medium=syndication&#038;utm_campaign=feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Partnerships are forged in fire, or so the saying goes, and for the McLaren Formula 1 team and the cryptocurrency exchange OKX, the beginning of their years-long partnership came about during some less-than-ideal conditions. The year was 2022, and at the time, crypto was crashing, and McLaren was solidly middle of the pack. \u201cPeople weren\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Behind crypto exchange OKX\u2019s winning bet on McLaren | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Partnerships are forged in fire, or so the saying goes, and for the McLaren Formula 1 team and the cryptocurrency exchange OKX, the beginning of their\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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