Guerrilla Marketing Meets Formula 1: Rhode & Meshki’s Smart Play

The blueprint for being in Formula 1 without paying the entry fee

Thank you for being here. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to Idée Fixe, the newsletter for curious minds. I’m Toni Cowan-Brown, a tech and F1 commentator. I’ve spent the past five years on the floor of way too many F1, FE, and WEC team garages, learning about the business, politics, and tech of motorsports. I hope you’ll stick around.

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⏳ Reading time: 9min

Formula 1’s glamour and massive global audience make it a coveted platform for brands, but official sponsorships cost a fortune. Beauty brand Rhode and fashion label Meshki have found clever ways to ride the F1 hype without paying the steep price of official partnerships. By newsjacking F1 buzz and enlisting drivers’ wives and girlfriends (WAGs), influencers, and female personalities, these brands created an F1 association on their own terms. I did a short video on Rhode’s tactic a while ago, and I have wanted to do a longer piece for a while, so here goes.

Source | Rhode Instagram

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A shifting Sponsorship Landscape

I was quoted in a piece in The Cut written by the incredible Asia - What’s beauty doing at F1? This piece highlights one big and one smaller shift happening in F1, a move to include a lot more B2C brands in F1 and beauty as a booming category right now, with the likes of Charlotte Tilbury and Rhode leading the way. In addition, in Austin, we had Clarins and in Vegas we saw Dermalogica getting involved in interesting and creative ways. I, for one am excited as I’ve been wanting to see more skincare brands in F1 for a while now.

First, for some context, it’s fair - and would be accurate - to say that Formula sponsorships have increasingly shifted towards consumer-focused brands (B2C), particularly those offering lower-priced products like beauty and lifestyle items.

In the past few decades, F1 sponsorships were dominated by business-to-business (B2B) companies, including automotive suppliers, technology, and financial services. And we are very much in the tech-wave of sponsorships in F1 - and other sports alike. In recent years, there's been a notable rise in business-to-consumer (B2C) sponsorships. A prominent example is Charlotte Tilbury's partnership with the F1 Academy (not quite F1, but the F1 Academy does fall under the F1 umbrella and ownership). A collaboration was announced in February 2024, which marked the first time a female-founded beauty brand sponsored the new all-female racing series, aiming to empower women in motorsport and reach a broader consumer audience.

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Rhode Beauty: F1 Glamour via a WAG Influencer

Rhode’s Fall 2024 campaign featured a recurring F1 Paddock personality, demonstrating how a brand can tap the sport’s glamor without an official sponsorship. Rhode - the skincare line founded by Hailey Bieber - aligned itself with Formula 1 through savvy influencer marketing. The brand enlisted Alexandra Saint Mleux, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc’s girlfriend, as the face of its Fall 2024 campaign to showcase Rhode’s cult lip tints and matching phone cases. This move was preceded by over a year of subtle placements through gifting tactics. The campaign validated the power of F1 WAG influence: many fans admitted they were “influenced by the Alexandra Saint Mleux campaign” to try Rhode products.

Charles Leclerc was spotted carrying her Rhode phone case​, a playful sign that the brand had infiltrated the F1 scene via unofficial channels. Marketing analysts hailed Rhode’s strategy as “genius” for capitalizing on F1’s growing female viewership and WAG culture. In short, Rhode managed to newsjack F1’s lifestyle glamour by turning a driver’s girlfriend into a beauty ambassador, reaping the buzz of an F1 sponsorship without the price tag. It’s also worth noting that many others in the Formula 1 paddock sport the Rhode phone case and it hasn’t been lost on me that during F1’s broadcast of races in 2024, on a handful of occasions during crowd shots, Rhode phone cases could be spotted as fans were filming the action on track.

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Meshki: Fashion Ambush on the Paddock Scene

Meshki’s “Race Day Looks” campaign brought F1 paddock style to the streets of Melbourne via live social billboards. Meshki, an Australian women’s fashion label, took a guerrilla marketing approach during the recent 2025 Australian Grand Prix weekend.

In a campaign called “Real-Time Race Day Looks,” Meshki displayed real-time social media content of F1 attendees wearing Meshki outfits on digital billboards around Melbourne​. These dynamic ads pulled in photos of influencers and F1 WAGs dressed in Meshki at the track, and even featured QR codes so passersby could shop the looks instantly as they appeared. The takeover included digital screens at tram stops and even a wrapped tram, effectively immersing the city in F1-themed Meshki branding.

This campaign brilliantly piggybacked on the Grand Prix’s buzz to target F1’s growing base of female fans, without any official F1 sponsorship. It gave the impression that Meshki was everywhere in the F1 conversation that weekend. In fact, even before this campaign, Formula 1 WAGs had organically helped popularize Meshki: the partners of drivers and F1 commentators were often seen wearing the brand’s attainable outfits during race weekends.

Fans on social media joked that Meshki seemed like the “official sponsor of F1 WAGs” because of how frequently the women sported its designs. By leveraging those organic appearances and amplifying them through a timely campaign, Meshki created a strong association with F1 style at a fraction of the cost of an official partner.

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The Power of Guerrilla Marketing & Newsjacking

Guerrilla marketing and newsjacking have proven effective for sports, lifestyle, and beauty brands because they inject brands into trending conversations in creative ways. Instead of expensive ad buys, these tactics rely on timing, relevance, and surprise. Marketing experts note that when your message aligns with a breaking news story or popular event, it gains instant relevance - media and consumers are far more receptive because you’re tapping into what they’re already interested in.

In essence, Grand Prix or big events do the heavy lifting of audience attention; the brand just cleverly slides into the spotlight. Such campaigns are typically low-cost but high-impact, breaking through advertising clutter with creativity and personal engagement. By using unconventional methods - whether it’s a viral social post, a stunt, or product placement - guerrilla marketing surprises people in memorable ways and generates buzz out of proportion to its budget. This is especially powerful in sports and lifestyle contexts, where fans are passionate and share content readily.

Another reason these tactics work is the authenticity factor. When brands piggyback on an event organically (through real participants or timely cultural references), it can feel more genuine than a paid ad. For example, when athletes or their partners voluntarily use a product, it comes off as a credible endorsement. A classic case is Beats by Dre headphones: athletes at major games kept wearing Beats even though a competitor was the official sponsor, which “did more for [Beats’] credibility and brand appeal than any official sponsorship could do”​. Similarly, Rhode’s use of an F1 WAG worked so well because it felt like part of the F1 lifestyle. In all these examples, the brands become both aspirational and attainable for fans. In short, guerrilla marketing and newsjacking let brands share the spotlight of big events in a way that resonates as relevant, creative, and authentic - all without writing those hefty sponsorship checks.

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Other Brands Winning with Guerrilla Marketing (Case Studies)

Beyond Formula 1, many brands have built strong associations with sports and pop culture events through guerrilla tactics rather than official sponsorships. Here are two such examples:

Beats by Dre’s Ambush of the Olympics and World Cup: In 2012, Beats headphones gatecrashed the London Olympics with an ambush campaign that had British athletes like Laura Robson and Tom Daley sporting Beats gear on camera - despite Beats not being an official sponsor. The company sent custom Union Jack-colored Beats headphones to Olympians, who happily wore them and even tweeted their thanks, skirting Olympic marketing rules​. A few years later, at the 2014 FIFA World Cup, players still preferred their Beats even though Sony was the paying sponsor (Sony gave teams free headphones, but many stars stuck with Beats). This organic adoption by athletes gave Beats an image of authenticity and cool factor that money couldn’t buy, effectively overshadowing the official sponsors. Beats’ strategy of providing coveted product to influencers (athletes) at the right moment kept the brand in the conversation and proved ambush marketing’s value when executed well.

Bavaria Beer’s “Orange Dresses” Stunt (2010 World Cup): A Dutch brewery pulled off a famous guerrilla marketing coup during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Bavaria Beer sent a group of 36 women to a match in South Africa clad in unbranded bright orange mini-dresses - the same orange color as Bavaria’s promotional clothing line.

The women, seated together, drew plenty of TV camera attention amid the sea of fans. Although the dresses had no logos, the color and design were identifiable as Bavaria Beer’s merchandise. FIFA officials realized this and ejected the group for “ambush marketing,” since Budweiser was the event’s official beer sponsor​. The ensuing controversy only amplified the stunt’s exposure. News outlets around the world covered the story of the “beer girls” being detained, inadvertently giving Bavaria massive publicity. Bavaria’s bold move showed that you don’t need to be an official sponsor to insert your brand into a global sports narrative - a well-timed prank can capture nearly as much attention as an expensive ad campaign.

With creativity and timing, a challenger brand can level the playing field with bigger sponsors. By leveraging cultural moments and fan excitement, brands like Rhode, Meshki, Beats, and Bavaria have all managed to create authentic connections with audiences, scoring a marketing win while their competitors were still writing checks.

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