Can beauty help this F1 team sway female fans?

British F1 team Aston Martin Aramco is partnering with beauty and wellness brands to grow its audience beyond motorsports. Chief marketing officer Rob Bloom explains the strategy.
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Aston Martin Aramco and nail brand Glaize collaborated ahead of the British Grand Prix weekend to meet its growing female audience.Photo: Courtesy of Aston Martin Aramco

British Formula One team Aston Martin Aramco says its signature racing green is more than just a colour: “It is the colour of a nation competing on the world stage.” And now, you can wear it on your nails.

Ahead of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone last weekend, the racing team partnered with nail brand Glaize to offer green nails wraps. “OMG, we girlies were waiting for this TYSM,” said one F1 fan on TikTok.

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The Formula One team leant into matcha and skincare activations to tap into its growing female fan base.

Photo: Courtesy of Aston Martin Aramco

It was one of several beauty and wellness activations from Aston Martin Aramco and its partners this season. Elemis, which was announced in February as Aston Martin’s first-ever skincare sponsor, offered exclusive kits and branded spa treatments at the Aston Martin Paddock Club Suite and the trackside Silverstone pop-up hotel. In London, Aston Martin hosted a co-branded activation with matcha brand Matchado, which served free drinks to members of the team’s I/AM fan community, and hosted a hospitality suite where fans could get close to the car ahead of race day.

The F1 team’s multi-layered campaign — which also included out-of-home print advertisements across 14 locations in the UK, spotlighting young fans’ TikTok content — was designed to connect with F1’s growing female fan base, which, according to global management consultancy Nielsen, now makes up 41 per cent of the 827 million-person-wide F1 audience, up from between 32 and 33 per cent in 2017.

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The London Covent Garden pop-up ahead of the 2025 British Grand Prix.

Photo: Courtesy of Aston Martin Aramco

Beyond strengthening brand equity among a fresher audience, Aston Martin’s beauty and lifestyle partnerships (Aston Martin also has deals with Hugo Boss, Glenfiddich and Puma) speak to a broader effort to diversify its revenue. The brand declined to share figures, but confirmed that 80 per cent of its F1 revenue now comes from commercial partnerships, with the remaining 20 per cent coming from additional streams off the back of the team’s F1 leaderboard position. Often, the higher the position, the more revenue compensation.

Since 2021, partnership revenue has grown twelvefold, with licensing income forecasted to quadruple in the next two years and sponsorship revenue increasing by 20 to 25 per cent annually, according to the brand. This income is essential: the team posted a £25 million post-tax loss in 2023 on revenues of £245 million, according to Companies House, as a £200 million Silverstone campus redevelopment, infrastructure upgrades and the recruitment of leadership executives ate into its bottom line.

Aston Martin’s strategy aligns with a broader transformation across the sport, as F1 evolves into a platform for global engagement. This has been influenced by the loosening of the league’s social media restrictions in 2017, encouraging teams and drivers alike to share more behind-the-scenes content, as well as large-scale film and TV productions, including Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive (which debuted in 2019) and the recent F1 film (released 25 June 2025 internationally).

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Rob Bloom, Aston Martin Aramco’s chief marketing officer.

Photo: Courtesy of Aston Martin Aramco

This changing landscape is attracting a wave of brand investment. Alongside Elemis and Glaize, players such as Huda Beauty, Givenchy Beauty, Lululemon, Amex, LVMH and Estée Lauder are each tapping into the sport’s cultural relevancy, either through team and driver sponsorships, or initiatives like the F1 Academy. As further companies look to enter the space, Aston Martin Aramco’s model signals how teams can build longer term commercial value beyond just race day.

In an exclusive interview, Aston Martin Aramco chief marketing officer Rob Bloom outlines the team’s playbook, and how beauty and lifestyle partnerships fit into the future of F1 brand-building.

Vogue: What is the strategic rationale behind Aston Martin Aramco’s partnership with beauty brands like Elemis? How does it reflect broader opportunities for beauty collaborations across the league?

It comes down to authenticity. Beauty and F1 share core values: technology, performance, identity and empowerment. Elemis approached us after seeing our work with [British racing driver] Jessica Hawkins and our focus on female empowerment. They said, ‘Let’s build something meaningful together.’ And that’s exactly what we did. The conversation felt organic; the community was already talking about it, so instead of projecting a message, we joined the conversation.

More broadly, F1 is evolving from a sport into a cultural platform. As fandom diversifies, beauty brands have a real opportunity to engage, not just with the race, but with the culture around it. Fans today express identity through fashion, makeup, skincare and even nails. It’s no longer ‘off-track’, it’s just a different engagement approach. So yes, Elemis was first, but the opportunity is wide open for beauty and wellness brands to enter F1 in a way that feels modern and multidimensional. Plus, the audience is global, digital and highly engaged — the scale is massive.

Vogue: How are you defining success? What are your metrics?

It’s classic marketing logic. We look at success through a full-funnel lens. At the top: reach who’s seeing our content, where and when. We track spikes around key cultural moments, like the British Grand Prix, and measure total impressions across earned, owned and social, especially TikTok, where virality drives exponential lift. Mid-funnel is engagement, not just likes or views, but time spent, meaningful comments, shares and user-generated content. Are fans interacting, tagging friends and remixing content? That’s when we know we’ve landed culturally.

At the bottom of the funnel, it’s about conversion and community growth: CRM sign-ups, I/AM member growth, web traffic, social followers and stronger first-party data. For us, success isn’t just volume; it’s meaningful relationships, insights we can act on and real partner return on investment. More fans, better data, smarter storytelling.

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Over the last week, the OOH Fanmade activation has garnered over 250 million social impressions.

Photo: Courtesy of Aston Martin Aramco

Vogue: How is F1, and Aston Martin specifically, adapting its marketing and content strategy to engage a growing and more diverse global fan base, particularly through social media?

We’re watching patterns. We analyse who’s engaging, what content sticks — TikTok has been pivotal for this — and what brings people into the fold. Whether it’s a nail brand collaboration, a moment from the F1 movie, or a creator-led trend, that insight shapes everything, from our creative briefs to our community strategy. For us, we want retention. The tent is widening, metaphorically speaking, but we’re focused on keeping people inside it by creating stories, experiences and content that feel personal, relevant and culturally fluent. That’s how we build long-term loyalty, not just visibility.

Vogue: So many beauty brands are leaning into F1 as a new opportunity. How do you ensure Aston Martin Aramco and its partnerships stand out from the crowd?

We stay focused on what matters most: the fan. Not just as an audience, but as part of the brand itself. That’s a big shift for a 100-year-old luxury name like Aston Martin, but it’s central to how we operate now. We’ve built a strong internal creative team, yes, but we also open the door to fan creators, especially on platforms like TikTok [47.1 per cent of the brand’s TikTok viewership is female]. We give fans the tools, the trust and the platform to help tell our story in their voice. That’s the heart of our I/AM programme: not a campaign, but a belief that fans are co-creators.

This approach filters into our partnerships. We’re not looking for transactional deals. We’re looking for alignment with brands that understand the larger F1 culture and that want to build something meaningful. When things like F1-inspired nail art or spa moments start trending among fans, it’s our job to listen, support and amplify that energy. That’s how we stay differentiated in a crowded space: by being responsive, culturally aware and fan-first.

Vogue: Looking ahead, what does the next phase of Aston Martin Aramco’s beauty opportunity look like?

We’re just getting started in beauty, but the potential is huge. Our work with Elemis is opening up opportunities — from products to experiences — that resonate with both our community and the broader F1 audience. Otherwise, our strategy is multi-layered. First, we’re identifying cultural intersections that are focused on where beauty and motorsport naturally overlap, such as nail art, or skincare rituals around race weekends. Second, we’re expanding globally, welcoming partners who want to tap into this moment with real creativity.

Our I/AM membership programme remains a key part of this. Less than 1 per cent of fans will ever attend a Grand Prix, so we have a responsibility to meet them where they are. If that’s skincare or beauty content, we want to amplify it. The response has already been powerful. Fans are saying, ‘Finally, a team sees us.’ That tells us this isn’t a niche opportunity. Granted, we’re still early in our journey with beauty, but we see huge potential.

Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.