Cannes Lions: Formula One driver Jenson Button’s car harnesses 6.5bn pieces of data per race, says McLaren Group chairman Ron Dennis
McLaren has become a data-driven, technology-centric brand, harnessing 6.5billion pieces of data from each race driven by driver Jenson Button alone, according to group chairman Ron Dennis.
Speaking at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity today, Dennis said: “We are a Formula One team but we are also a very diversified technology business group. We have adapted our business to encompass the different technologies and evolve and adapt our business,” he said.
Dennis said the McLaren team had moved away from traditional brand management to become “brand extremists” and that he “disdains” brand inertia when it comes to innovation.
“We are believers in both magic and science. We have had to adapt and evolve how we tell stories – and stories are the new currency. We share, as a principle, a complete disdain for inertia – because in a world of technology to not innovate – to just stand still is akin to death,” he said.
Fellow speaker, global CEO of Mindshare, Nick Emery, said technology and data had become key themes at Cannes Lions, along with content, which has historically been the dominant theme. “The central issue has now become how to marry distribution of content and technology in real time and the implications are profound - we have had to change our models completely.
“The answer is probably not a traditional agency or media agency anymore, but a construct that can bring together data, T-commerce, mobile and social at the centre of operations,” he said.
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