Who Says F1 Doesn’t Recycle?
Vijay Mallya certainly seems determined to get the name of his team out there, he’s now started television adverts in India. I’ve never seen a Formula 1 team specifically advertising themselves. You quite often see an F1 car zip across the bottom of a Renault advert, for example, but purely to advertise the team?
Here is the advert in it’s full glory [spotted on Rediscover Formula One].
Not that bad, really, is it?
Here’s the thing. Eagle eyes have spotted that the footage used in the new promo, actually belongs to Toyota. Here’s a still from one of the German team’s Paul Ricard shoots:
Does this look familiar? Watch the Force India trailer again.
Here’s another:
The original Toyota footage can be seen here. Don’t you think that’s slightly cheeky?
They’ve probably paid for the use of the footage, or at least had permission, given Mallya’s close links with the two teams. But for a team that is constantly trying to convince us that budget is no problem anymore, would it be that hard to pay for your own track day?
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:52 pmSteven Roy said:
‘It’s not about winning or losing’.
I can’t imagine a worse way to start an advert for a formula one team. Surely we don’t have another team without a clue.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:10 pmOllie said:
And here was thinking this was going one of those thoughtful and entirely original posts about material recycling in Formula One!
The footage use is a bit cheeky but then why would you spend money unnecessarily?
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:55 pmAlenyaa said:
Funnily enough wtaching this video on this site was no problem
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 pmRich said:
Could be that Toyota licensed such imagery under a creative commons share-alike license - but where is Force India’s acknowledgment? This is tongue-in-cheek; but the video is a bit naughty even if they have permission to use it!
January 4th, 2008 at 1:12 amdoctorvee said:
“It’s not about winning… it’s about glory.”
Huh?!
I also love the fact he says, “sometimes you do things only because you believe in them”, and then goes on to list a whole bunch of other reasons why he’s entering F1.
January 4th, 2008 at 6:40 amme said:
very true. since when has just taking part been enough? i guess since toyota arrived on the grid. methinks their attitude to racing has rubbed off in Vijay.
daft question, but why is the guy speaking english? whenever schumi wanted to galvanize the support of the tifosi, he did it in italian and when he appeared in advertisements in his home country, he spoke in german.
January 4th, 2008 at 6:51 amJourneyer said:
It could partly be down to the fact that India has so many languages and dialects that it’s hard to pinpoint 1 Indian language to do the commercial in. So they decided to do it in English instead - after all, many Indians nowadays work with different people worldwide (thanks to outsourcing) - and these are the people Force India are targeting - for support (mostly financial :p).
January 4th, 2008 at 9:03 amOllie said:
Force India are also based in the UK still (I’m assuming they’ve taken over the Silverstone HQ), English is the language of F1 as Bernie continually states and India has strong links with UK. Most Indians I know have said they regularly hear English on a daily basis in India.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:09 amSteven Roy said:
I would think he is speaking English because of the number of languages in India and I believe that the target market would be people who use English as a business language. There may be other versions of the ad that we have not seen.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:37 pmAnkit said:
It might be Toyota’s images ? But whats wrong in it ?
Anyway, i assure you that almost 100% of the F1 watching population here in India speak English, infact almost everyone does and it has little to do with outsourcing, the fraction of people working in BPOs is still pretty low. Infact all MNC ads in India are in english or a mixture of hindi and english. Plain hindi ads are usually only run on soap networks.
The large english speaking population is mainly due to the fact as someone mentioned India has a multitude of languages(>50 or 100 (i dont know)), so the central education boards prescribe English as a compulsory language, so anyone who has passed School has passed English. Plus there is no dearth of educated Indians believe me.
‘Winning and Losing’ comment is probably there as many Indians are unaware of F1. They would expect their team to start winning from the 1st race on. It might be to tell them that the team has a long way to go before it will be able to challenge for the podium and also to maybe silence critics of Mallya who say he has bought a dying team.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:41 pmAnkit said:
Also my personal opinion is that the ad is a pretty good effort, i mean its achieving what its meant to achieve , people are talking about Force India on the streets, in the cafes etc.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:19 pmChristine said:
That’s definitely a good point. We’re all talking about here, so it must be doing it’s job.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:52 pmme said:
fair enough, i learn something new everyday, cheers ankit.
nothing’s wrong with it, but it is unusual. i couldn’t imagine mclaren reusing ferrari video for example, and super aguri don’t appear to use honda’s even though they probably could (should) do.
January 4th, 2008 at 7:45 pmScott Dryden said:
Fisichella’s apparent appointment seems to be attracting a degree of attention over in India:
http://broadband.indiatimes.com/videoshow/2672666.cms
January 5th, 2008 at 12:19 amEvenstar Saima said:
I’m quite weary of this Force India team, despite being of Asian origin myself.
The Indian industries such as Bollywood copy anything they can get their hands on. I despise it.
Their F1 team will be no different. They’ve never heard of copyrights lol
And suprise suprise, they’ve got Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan to promote it - faaaaaantastic….
January 5th, 2008 at 5:51 amAnkit said:
@Saima - I daresay thats a racist comment, also i think you meant ‘wary’. About copying of movies, thats funny because Hollywood does it too.
“Their F1 team will be no different. They’ve never heard of copyrights lol”
I see from your blog that you live in London, I guess you might be aware of a certain McLaren team which loves to respect copyrights and corporate secrets
Also i am curious to know which other ‘Indian industry’ you are even aware of which ‘copies stuff’ ? And damn Shahrukh, maybe Daniel Craig would’ve been better, ainit ?
@Other - Sorry if this comment was rude.
January 5th, 2008 at 11:50 pmbrendan stallard said:
“many Indians are unaware of F1. They would expect their team to start winning from the 1st race on.”
Ankit:
Which is why VJ Mallya said he required a podium finish sometime in 2010, (was it)?
Don’t get excited about what you might see as racism: all the folks in the UK, Europe and the USA are not quite yet used to seeing Indian folks entering forum conversation just yet, but we will….
There are some language and cultural differences, but I know we’ll work it out. I have extensive contacts with loads of folks from the Indian Sub Continent and know a bit of India and Pakistan quite well–ish. I’ve been there a time or two.
We are good folks here, apart from the (known) McLaren haters: who will all go to hell in short order and very soon:)
You, and the Force India team are VERY welcome, and personally, I think old VJ is no dope. I reckon he might put a driver on podium like when he says he will.
brendan
January 5th, 2008 at 11:51 pmme said:
i wouldn’t say it was rude, but i do i think that ‘racist’ is a particularly strong word to be throwing around, without first clarifying with Evenstar what she meant. personally i think she meant ‘weary’, but maybe something was lost in translation somewhere?
i’ve no experience with anything from the bollywood genre, so couldn’t possibly comment on whether the industry is short on originality or not.
what i will say though, is that when honda drafted in Posh and Becks for a bit of shameless PR, we took them to task for it. and seeing as Shahrukh Khan appears to have no tangible association with F1 prior to his new engagement, we’ll probably do the same for him.
if anyone else has knowledge of the bollywood subject we’d love to hear from them.
January 5th, 2008 at 11:56 pmme said:
funny
i agree, he didn’t have 7 drivers chasing one seat by coincidence.
January 6th, 2008 at 6:27 amAnkit said:
The reason for using that word was the impression of India shown by him/her.
The fact is that mostly people assume that India is a backward place with no electricity, power and fuel (which is quite funny normally).
Also Indian companies aren’t thieves like it was suggested and i took exception to that.
Also Shahrukh Khan didnt take any money for the advert my sources tell me, and he is quite different from Posh and Becks (who i assume are quite a glamorous couple). The reason to get Shahrukh onboard was that he has a mass appeal among all classes (not only the rich and famous), also one of his recent movies was about sports and patriotism (Chak De India) which sort of became a sporting anthem here in India so it made more sense.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:51 pmEvenstar said:
@Ankit: Hi, I apologise if you felt my comments were a little racist but I fail to see how they were exactly. First of all, most of my comments were tongue in cheek. I’m not so happy about Force India because I feel rather than actually knowing what the sport is for and about, it’s just another ploy for them to get popular and dare I say we’ll be seeing Bollywood stars at races more often now… But I don’t hate them lol I understand what you’re saying because I see Indians on my tv everyday and have seen plenty of their films. Referring to the copying thing, nevermind it because it was just a bit of jest.