Why F1 Hooking Up with Amelia Dimoldenberg Makes Sense
Ok, the title may be a bit on the nose, but F1 is finally engaging in an exciting media collaboration for the young, digital fans they are obsessed with pleasing.
Yes, I’m behind on my Azerbaijan Grand Prix and Singapore Grand Prix sponsor debrief posts, however, this Formula 1 news got me excited and so I want to briefly throw out some thoughts and acknowledge F1’s clever play in collaborating with internet sensation, Amelia Dimoldenberg.
An Amelia Dimoldenberg x F1 collaboration has been floating around in the back of my mind now (specifically, ever since Lando Norris’s appearance on Chicken Shop Date in early 2024), so needless to say I’m annoyed at myself for not putting this thought in writing before this official announcement dropped this week. In my opinion, this collaboration could have come even sooner off the back of Lando’s interview, but the timing does seem to be appropriately timed (more on that below).
The Chicken Shop Lore
For those who aren’t yet familiar with her, Amelia is the genius behind the YouTube show, Chicken Shop Date.
A quick overview of her social media stats:
2.7M Instagram followers (Amelia)
2.1M Instagram followers (Chicken Shop Date)
3.23M YouTube subscribers
937M YouTube views
The format of the show is exactly as it says on the tin, Amelia goes on ‘dates’ with celebrities in classic chicken shops in London. The show celebrated it’s ten-year anniversary this year and has truly gone from strength to strength in recent years, now a pillar of internet culture and a regular stopping point on a-listers press tours. Guests on the show have included Paul Mescal, Billie Eilish, Idris Elba, Bella Hadid and Charli xcx.
It’s pop-cultural importance can be highlighted by the fact that Cynthia Erivo stopped by a chicken shop on the wave of the global Wicked press tour, Damson Idris featured this past summer during the mammoth F1: The Movie rollout, and Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds were both guests last year while promoting Deadpool & Wolverine.
Amelia has also expanded her career away from the YouTube show, now a regular on red carpets for the Oscars and Golden Globes, interviewing celebrities (although critically in keeping with her deadpan, flirty Chicken Shop Date persona that her brand is centered on). These red carpet appearances in their own right have led to viral interview moments and Amelia’s interactions and relationships with stars at these shows has also simultaneously benefited both her media star status and the YouTube show.
In 2023, she interviewed Andrew Garfield on the Golden Globes red carpet, and the internet went wild. To Amelia’s (genuine) surprise, the actor knew who was she and very quickly played along with her flirtatious banter. What followed was an unofficial internet campaign to get Andrew featured on Chicken Shop Date (which finally happened earlier this year and currently sits at 12M views, making it the most watched video on the channel).
Celebrating a decade of the show, Amelia has just finished up a pop-up event in London, Chicken Shop Date: 10 Years of an Idea, an event aimed at inspiring other creatives through industry panels, workshops and insight into the behind the scenes grafting gone into the unique interview show. The sell-out event also points to Amelia’s current influence in this space.
Amelia is Learning to Drive
The project with F1 (produced in collaboration with Amelia’s production company, Dimz Inc.) will see a four-part YouTube series titled ‘Passenger Princess’, where Amelia will learn how to drive with the help of four seasoned drivers - Carlos Sainz, George Russell, Oscar Piastri and Ollie Bearman. The teaser video shows the drivers either driving Amelia around on track while she asks some basic driving questions, or letting her take her turn in the driver’s seat (it does appear that she does not in fact have a driver’s licence).
I’m personally glad to see that this newly-created series doesn’t look to be a rehashing of the exact Chicken Shop Date format, i.e. Amelia attempting to flirt with her guests in her usual deadpan style which only really creates excellent content when the guest is able to hold their own against her attempts at making them feel as awkward as possible. This format seems to be a bit more casual which I think the drivers will be more relaxed with which hopefully results in more authentic content (I for one cannot imagine how Carlos Sainz would handle her classic Chicken Shop Date approach).
What’s The Strategy?
I received a comment on one of my posts on this announcement, comparing this move by F1 to a similar one by the US Open (I assume referring to working with influencer Morgan Riddle, who also happens to be the partner of US-player Taylor Fritz, on social content), and remarking that that approach didn’t seem to win many new fans for the sport.
However, I don’t think the objective here should be to acquire new fans. I think it should be to better engage with the new, younger fans that F1 has already welcomed in the last couple of year’s who don’t engage with traditional sports media as we know it.
It’s worth nothing that F1 boss Stefano Domenicali has been recently quoted as saying that younger fans are not interested in watching long races, but rather watch the recap highlights on YouTube and short-form content instead (needless to say there are issues with this assumption way beyond the scope of this post). So to see the sport trialling a new approach to the social content that F1 is producing and publishing should be no surprise to those who have been paying attention to where Liberty Media’s focus continues to turn. The partnership press release itself states:
“Following the success of Drive to Survive and F1 The Movie, this is the latest example of Formula 1’s original content strategy to deeply embed the sport in popular culture and reach new fans outside of traditional race weekends.”
Why The F1 Media Landscape Needs a Boost
TL;DR: I think F1/ Liberty Media has scared off, bored off and overlooked content creators for so long now, that the quantity and quality of unique, fun and interesting online content has decreased.
At first, I simply thought this partnership was a good pairing, but on deeper reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that F1’s media landscape really needs a new lease of life at the moment - and hopefully this is a solid start.
I’ve talked a lot in this publication about the F1 content creator economy, the discourse around influencers working with brands/teams within the sport, but also the moments when sponsors get it really right with bringing dedicated motorsport creators into their campaigns. During the pandemic, motorsport content was booming on social media and there was a stark rise in the number of younger, digitally-engaged fans interacting with the sport online. From 2022 to 2024, it felt like there were multiple creators, podcasts, live watchalongs, etc. popping up across all social channels. But I (and many others) feel we’ve been in a weird lull lately.
In 2024, Liberty Media issued cease and desist letters to online content creators who were using F1 trademarks or associations in their monetised content, which resulted in many of these creators having to rebrand or rename their socials. It marked a significant change that Liberty Media were cracking down harder on media that was outside it’s own ecosystem. Since then, there seems to be a level of exhaustion among lots of these large, well-established creators. Getting to work with the sport, teams or sponsors in an official, paid capacity appears to be extremely difficult as they are often overlooked for more traditional influencers (who may or may not be familiar with F1 themselves), and they’re being constantly looked over for traditional media rights/access to events that has left a lot feeling unmotivated to continue to deliver content.
But what does all this mean? For me overall, this season has felt like it hasn’t generated much excitement, interest or online buzz that we had maybe previously expected to see. That may be due to the lack of wheel-to-wheel racing due to the current regulation set, a relatively tame drivers championship battle, and less creators online creating alternative, unique content. With the absence of fans and creators offering a USP online, we’ve reverted back to relying slightly more on traditional sports media for news and entertainment. As mentioned, F1 itself has been outspoken in it’s attempts to capture and engage younger audiences through social media by posting highlights and meme-worthy moments on it’s official channels, but there’s rarely any unique perspectives or truly engaging creative hooks being employed by these sources. So it’s ironic in a way that F1 would try to limit the creative freedom and access of creators when they are the ones who are creating (mostly) exactly for this demographic that they have become obsessed with retaining by making the sport as entertaining as possible.
While Amelia and Chicken Shop Date have now become a stalwart of internet media culture, she does possess an alternative, unique approach with her interviewing style that has helped lay the foundations of her brand and what she offers as a media personality. Her approach is to foster a conversation that produces genuine, off-the-cuff moments that fans find endearing, wholesome and often cringy, which will hopefully stand in contrast to the often scripted, PR-brief content we so often see from the drivers.
I’m excited to see the reaction to this one and how it might shape how F1 continues to evolve for social audiences.
(All this being said, there is of course opportunity for online creators, who have been working tirelessly in this space for so long, to also get the opportunity to showcase their creativity within the sport.)
Content that Informed & Inspired this Post
🔗 F1 and Amelia Dimoldenberg partnership press release.
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