✍️#5: Lululemon's First Chapter with Lewis Hamilton
Everyone's shared their opinion around the blockbuster signing, but how is it playing out in real time?
BACKGROUND
February 24th marked the day heads turned in the paddock and beyond when Lululemon announced Sir Lewis Hamilton as their newest global ambassador. Lululemon championed the partnership “to power Lewis’ elite training, recovery, and lifestyle needs with best-in-class product, while collaborating on future design innovation and global advocacy work.”
“We’re thrilled to welcome Lewis to the lululemon collective as our newest Ambassador. Lewis is a game-changer in every sense of the word. His relentless commitment to performance, wellbeing, and impact align completely with what we stand for at lululemon,” said Nikki Neuburger, Chief Brand and Product Activation Officer at lululemon. “We’re excited to partner with Lewis to innovate, inspire, and create positive change together.”
WHAT’S SKIMS GOT TO DO WITH IT?
Disclaimer — Do I have the authority to weigh in on the “female gaze?” Absolutely not, but I hope the argument feels salient and respectful.
There’s the immediate appeal of the Lewis x Lulu deal:
validation in a new sport vertical
validation to a global audience with a universally-known athlete
validation with a style icon who lives in the sports realm
But does it go deeper? Hear me out…Think about the SKIMS working with the NFL’s Nick Bosa to launch SKIMS inaugural men’s line. While Nick Bosa validates SKIMS in sport and in a male audience, we could argue that this was an ad spot made for the female gaze. You could make the case that men watching the NFL aren’t necessarily converted to trying SKIMS as their new underwear because Nick Bosa is wearing it — there’s likely an additional influence of validation from the female gaze to make the purchase.
Similarly, when viewing the Lewis Hamilton deal, Lewis is a style icon and has a fanbase across the sexes both for his athletic prowess and his style and swagger. Perhaps similarly, we may see the female gaze playing a factor in supporting the purchase from men or to men from Lululemon. This is coupled with a decidedly “intense” launch video (above) that feels steeped in pushing the performance limits, working to exhaustion, and winning. In other words, they’re playing a dynamic game to address a more complete audience to respond to the “messy middle” of consideration and conversion in the marketing landscape.
DRAFTING
Forgive the pun, but part of the sports marketing playbook is to DRAFT off of the big moments in sport. Naturally, the athlete gets a lift in visibility and naturally storytelling through the competition in their sport and the brands and partners in their orbit have the opportunity to tacitly take the stage with them. However, with singular athletes, they may not have the opportunity to take the brand on the podium with them if there are competing and overruling sponsorship agreements with the league or organization. Such as to be expected with Formula 1 and Ferrari, who likely limits Lululemon’s ability to feature certain iconography and imagery around the competition.
In the case of Lululemon, the 2025 F1 season’s first event takes place in Australia between March 13th and March 15th and this is the first chance Lululemon has to introduce storytelling to their relationship with Lewis.
PRE-RACE CONTENT
Nothing from Lewis or Lululemon yet.
POST-RACE CONTENT
Nothing from Lewis or Lululemon yet.
NUANCES
The fact of the matter is here is that these relationships are extremely complex. We only get to see the tip of the iceberg and it may seem OBVIOUS to us that the first sporting event of the year for Lewis could have been amplified to be larger than life, but we might not know all of the context. Here’s just a small example of the factors at play:
F1 may block any content capture in and around the weekend insinuating racing if the brand is not a sponsor of the organization.
Ferrari may block any content capture in and around the weekend around race weekend or its cars if the brand is not a sponsor of the team.
Lewis’s agreement may not compel him or require content around race weekends OR AT ALL. It could also be his preference. Lewis has not historically bookended his races with partner content so why start now? Lewis’s focus has always been something he’s leveraged around competition and his debut at Ferrari is delicate to say the least.
Lululemon may elect to avoid race weekend content and rather focus on his holistic view of wellness and performance for demographic reasons. For example, they might have the opinion that event weekends are saturated with brands already affiliated with the sport and either this audience is oversaturated with content moments OR they don’t want to be associated solely with competition.
Regardless of the factors, I can’t wait to see what we see next with Lululemon and Lewis Hamilton.
SMALL BRAND MENTALITY SLINGSHOT
I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of connecting with individuals who aspire to build their careers in the outdoor industry and to flourish within it. In this segment, get to know and connect with them to slingshot their personal development and see what they’re up to!
Meet Max Sauerbrey
Max is a documentary filmmaker from Steamboat Springs, CO. He lives a life that balances time spent with family, friends, his partner Juliette, making movies, and climbing. Building from this value set, Max mostly looks outside of documentary for creative influences, ie. YouTube (Van Neistat, Colin and Samir, and Tyler Karow), podcasts (The Enormocast, The Uphill Athlete Podcast, and Second Nature), and narrative films/tv (Ruben Ostlund, Lance Oppenheim, and Christoper Nolan).
Currently, Max is working on a film called “The Way it Was.” When he turned 18, his grandpa gave him a 13 TB hard drive with his life's work; a vast collection of digitized 16mm footage collected throughout Alaska (mostly during the 70s). The film features ski touring on the Ruth Glacier, hunting grizzly bears on Kodiak island, kayaking first descents near Valdez, and a hell of a lot more. His grandpa began creating a film back in the day to share his footage with the world, but never got it done. So Max’s partner Juliette and Max went up to AK to help him finish what he started 50 years ago, which culminated into a 40 minute short doc that he'll be releasing later this year.
THE WAY IT WAS teaser:
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This was a good read on female creators in F1. https://www.ft.com/content/e4746ae6-4ce0-40ee-a94f-8a3528e539f9 What I think is smart about the Lulu x Lewis partnership is exactly that it helps bring in men, while still also catering to Lulu's core audience (women) who love him and F1 in droves.