Louise McEwen, CMO of McLaren Racing, joins Edelman’s Jackie Cooper at Cannes Lions to discuss how her brand builds emotional connection with fans, drives cultural relevance, and balances heritage with innovation. She reflects on the importance of instilling trust through inclusive experiences and a fan-first mindset, while always honoring the brand’s racing legacy.
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Hi, this is Richard Edelman, and you’re listening to The Trustmakers. Hello, I’m Jackie Cooper. I’m the Global Chief Brand Officer and Senior Advisor at Edelman. We’re joining you today on the ground from the 2025 Cannes Line Festival of Creativity, where we are recording a special series of The Trustmakers.
We recently released the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report, Brand Trust from We to Me, which considers how brands meet both personal and societal expectations. In a world where trust is so fragile and consumer expectations are rising, brands are being asked to do more than just show up. They’re expected to inspire optimism, offer community, and deliver experiences that resonate on a human level.
68% of people told us they expect brands to provide stability and also that cultural relevance and understanding of the brand’s community drives trust. These expectations cross a variety of categories and sectors and is really relevant even in high-performance sports, which brings us, luckily enough, to McLaren Racing.
While the brand is legendary for engineering and innovation on the track, it’s also building something just as powerful off it: a deeper emotional connection with fans and new audiences around the world across multiple formats such as Formula One, IndyCar, Formula E, and e-gaming. Very much of that momentum has been shaped today by our guest.
Louise McKeown is the Chief Marketing Officer of McLaren Racing and someone with deep expertise in brand activation, sponsorship, and experiential events. So, Louise, welcome to The Trustmakers.
Thank you. What an introduction. What was your first emotional connection into that McLaren Racing brand world? Was there a moment that made it personal for you that kind of really got you committed, revealing?
Well, I’ve got to say there’s been a couple, but I guess if I just go back a little bit on the journey that I’ve been on with the team, really, and ultimately the brand. So before I joined McLaren, I was actually brand side at Vodafone and a little bit younger than I was today, let’s say. I watched as Lewis Hamilton took his first title with the team back in 2008, and that was incredible to see that euphoria and really inspire me, I suppose, a little bit in my own career.
Fast forward, I joined the team when we weren’t doing quite as well, if I’m really honest. So kind of transitioned into the team back in 2015 when we were in a very, very different place on the grid. In fact, I think we were almost back at ninth place then, or we were ninth place that year, right? So quite different feelings.
And then I’m going to fast forward. I’m going to fast forward to May this year when my emotions kind of were probably the rawest I’ve ever been when I was given the most incredible honour of standing on the podium at the Miami Grand Prix, accepting the Constructors’ Trophy. We won the race there, and I was up on the podium with Oscar Lando and George Russell, actually, the three other drivers that accepted the trophies, and then me. It was hugely emotional. Actually, I’m still kind of riding it out and just going, did that really happen?
And for me, it was just that journey from the back of the grid to the front. And then to be standing up there, we were on honour and privilege to accept the trophy on behalf of the entire team, all the men and women at McLaren. I didn’t realise at the time, but I was actually the only, the 11th woman in the history of Formula One to be up on the podium. I didn’t know that.
I had a heap of other nerves going up, including don’t fall over and don’t screw it up, Lee. And it was only when I sort of came off and social media picked up on it that I realised the scale. And beyond just being a woman, it was also the fact that I’m in the commercial marketing world and other peers within the industry and within the sport and actually entertainment worlds and partners all reached out and just said how proud they were that they saw someone other than pure race team up there.
And I guess for us as a team, culturally, that meant such a huge strides that we’d taken forward under Zach and Andrea’s leadership, that they realised that the commercial team fuel on-track performance through the incredible partner ecosystem that we’ve had. So the pride’s there. And yes, there were definitely a few tears, also tears because that champagne stung incredibly. I can’t say it was the most glamorous moment, but it’s definitely up there with just those pinch me moments that I’ll never forget.
Itwas literally and metaphorically then from the back of the grid to the front and such an achievement and such a public achievement as well. It’s so interesting that your failures and your successes are so public, which kind of must make it even more gratifying when you could get to that point and you’re standing on the stage. That’s an extraordinary moment.
Yeah. Obviously, your world is so culturally attuned and you’ve got fans, you’ve got community, you’ve probably got a deeper understanding of community than many businesses and brands. And one of the things that was gratifying to see in this report, which is so new, is that brands are the most trusted above all other institutions, which is quite an extraordinary thing, including media. And we see that part of that trust is driven by making sure that brands are really engaged deeply in culture. But obviously that culture has to be relevant and it has to speak to the community.
So how do you gauge how to show up, when to show up, how to keep that engagement? What are your sort of parameters around that?
Well, I guess the first point is the fact that fans are really the lifeblood of our team. And actually, people might not know, but we’re 100% funded by our commercial partners. So clearly the bigger fan base we have, the more compelling that is for people to partner with us. But beyond that as well, you know, we’ve always been a fan first team. It’s been something very, very important to us for the whole of the journey that we’ve been on, but particularly as we go back from being ninth on the grid. I think, you know, that was definitely Zach’s vision when he came into the team. It’s like, I want this to be fan first and fan centric. And that’s definitely been the focus of us from the marketing point of view as well.
I guess you’ve got to know who your fans are. And I think back in 2017, we did a real deep analysis of who our fans were. You know, we weren’t in a good place then. We needed to work hard and understand what levers we had. The sport wasn’t in the same place either, right? It’s quite a different landscape those days before Drive to Survive, right? So we did this analysis and then we were pretty laser focused on what those drivers of fandom were for fans at that time. And we’ve been laser focused ever since. You know, it’s not just this PowerPoint template that lives in a drawer somewhere. It’s a living, breathing fan ecosystem that we’re focused on.
And I think because we’ve always had that at the forefront of our thinking, we’ve been watching, we’ve been listening to fans all the time. We’ve not always got it right, but we’ve tested and learned over the years. And slowly, slowly, as we crept from the front of the grid to the back, right, we’ve seen the fans show up. We’ve also been in a great position to welcome the new audience that have come into the sport, right? And over that period of time, fandom’s changed, right? It’s no longer just throw it out there and wait for fans to pick it up. I think with the fantastic opportunity comes the challenge of how do you meet those fans in deeper, meaningful ways that connects with them in their lives beyond the track?
Because the newer fans that are coming into the sport, they don’t sit and watch 90 minutes of linear TV. I don’t think many people watch linear TV these days, do they? So it’s really important that we need to take our brand to them and show up in ways where they want to connect with it. Equally, we’ve got avid fans who’ve followed us for years, and they’re just as important. So you’ve got to kind of have a very different approach to fandom than just a one size fits all, which is probably where we were back in 2017.
It’s so interesting also because I think this is something that’s grown beyond the niche to your point. You’ve embraced so many more communities and such a width of conversation now and multimedia. It means we can actually access it. Engagement’s deeper, wider on multi-platforms. Our report also found that 70% of consumers consider personal experience as the most influential factor informing their opinion of a brand.
How do you create an experience around a product like McLaren Racing across so many different racing formats that appeals to a global audience?
Well, let’s just start, I guess, as an incredible fact, actually, that only 1% of fans ever get to go to a racetrack in their lifetime. It’s incredible, isn’t it? So that’s primarily we’re reaching people through social media these days for that scale across the markets. We’re really lucky in that we’ve got this incredible racing series, as you alluded to. I think if you added up all the places where racing cumulatively across the globe, I think it’s something like we’re on track somewhere 60 weekends. It’s not even 60 weekends in a year, right? But we’re showing up in some format or other.
So we’re incredibly lucky that we’ve got that lever to show up in different territories. But going back to that point, what we want to do is make sure that we can open up the sport to make it more inclusive so that people can come and engage with us. We know that experiences are really important to people. So beyondsocial media now, we’re also looking at broadening out the sport. We’ve got a really exciting activation coming up in London on 2nd and 3rd of July. It’s called London Live and it’s a multi-platform event. We’re taking over Trafalgar Square, literally turning it papaya. And it’s open, it’s open to the general public to come and show their support, I think. We’ll have representation from all of our series there across our drivers and some of our senior representation as well. And I think it’s really exciting. It’s the first time we’ve done that. And I think for us, that’s a really important part of our strategy to the future because we want more people to come and engage with us.
And then beyond that, the other opportunity I think that we’ve got around that experiential piece is actually how we show up with the right brands as well. We’re incredibly lucky. We’ve got an amazing partner portfolio. But as you look at some of our licensees and products that we’ve created over the last couple of years with those people, you look at Abercrombie & Fitch. We’ve actually just launched a kids collection with M&S, which I’m pretty sure has been unbelievable. I’ve just checked in with the licensing team and it’s really outperformed even what we predicted and many items have sold out already. So, you know, those are all examples of ways where with that new generation of fan can touch and feel the brand in ways that they couldn’t before.
Yeah, I was actually going to ask you because the notion of that sort of racing world being the sort of older guys in the anorak and it now being so deeper and wider. What’s your focus and what’s the sort of inspiration to get the younger audience involved? Do you think generationally or is it more of a sort of mindset because it’s a passion for the racing or how do you actually help engage and widen your audiences? We want any fans, let’s be honest. But I think if you look at the demographic of the new fan coming into the sport, it’s extraordinary that I think in the last five years, there’s been a 60% increase in the 18 to 34 year old bracket, right? And a large proportion of those are women. And there’s an incredible opportunity because those girls, women want to be able to have affinity with brands and show up and wear kit in a different way than ever before, right? So it’s brilliant that we’ve now got opportunities with Abercrombie, as I said, equally to me, brands like Jack Daniels showing up. They’re younger brands that also want those same consumers. So actually we can show up together in really authentic ways and deliver on those experiential events as well.
I had no idea about the 1%, which is a really low percentage that just shows the power of the brand and the experience to travel, which is fantastic. And we found that trusting brands has increased significantly and that’s largely been driven, interestingly enough, by low income respondents, which was a surprise. And so when we’ve been looking at that and sort of talking with you today, I was thinking that really McLaren racing products are perhaps consumed by people who are on a higher income, but have you reached a broader audience through the brand? Do you think you’ve done that because so many people are having the experience at home watching or because they’re able to come to an event or they’re actually able to involve themselves in just having a little piece of the world buying a piece of apparel? The fact that trust has risen among people who are also low income is something that’s a slight surprise for the previous year’s data. And so the brands are reassuring and you’ve got a situation where your brand turns up in the world, in real life, on screen, in store. So I’m guessing that you’re crossing with everything that you’re embracing because there’s so many ways that you can touch the world, right?
Yeah, I think, and as I said, there’ll be lots of those fans that whilst we want to engage them with it, they’re also really happy following us and connecting on social media and therefore income isn’t a barrier for a lot of those social media experiences, right? But they want to feel connected and part of a community. And I think that’s what, you know, for us as a team, we’ve always prided ourselves in being the most inclusive team on the grid. It’s something we’ve always strived for. And, you know, we are conscious when we go into new partnerships or we have new collaborations, right? It’s really important if you take our race collection, there’ll be some high-end premium items, but equally there’s a cap or there’s a hoodie or there’s a T-shirt, which makes it accessible. And, you know, as I said before, the M&S kids range, fandom’s formed around the age of 14, right? So we know that there’s a moment where hopefully we can aspire to those young, those newer fans and new generations coming through as well and at a great price point. So it doesn’t exclude people. It’s something we’re really conscious of. And as I said, as we go to do concepts like London Live, then we know that the big tickets that you might pay for some races aren’t going to preclude people from coming along and joining in and supporting us in Papaya.
Yeah, it’s a really great inclusive offer. And you’ve got your OKX Center campaign being really somethingthat’s been so successful, which I guess must also make you feel so proud. I understand that you generated nearly 180 million video views, which is absolutely, you know, nuts and incredibly gratifying. So do you want to tell us a little bit about how that came together? And why do you think that ignited so much? Why do you think that got such extraordinary results?
We were always excited to run the campaign, to do what we were going to do in Monaco. It was kind of a year in the making and it grew over that time. But I don’t think any of us quite knew how successful it was going to be. And I suppose the beauty of it really is it was founded in just wonderful, authentic storytelling about an absolute legend in our sport who resonated at that time but still resonates. And we’d seen over the years, whenever we posted anything about Senna, it really outperformed other content. And we were like, OK, I think we’re onto something here. So we took quite a lot of those learnings into it.
And then I think as we got closer to the anniversary, we recognized there were lots of typical ways that people were telling that story. But our ambition was actually to keep that legacy alive. He was one of those drivers that will always, always be remembered. But actually, the younger generation had never seen him race. So they didn’t, you know, the majority of people watching that campaign never saw Senna on track. But obviously, his legacy lives on and we were able to story tell about that.
He was the king of Monaco. He won more times in Monaco in McLaren than any other race team. So we had a right to kind of own that story and that narrative, I suppose. And then understanding and fast forwarding and telling that story in a modern way, I think it really emotionally connected with so many of the fans in just an awesome way. And Senna Foundation came on board and joined us. Obviously, OKX also story told. So that helped with the amplification to a younger audience. And yeah, it was fantastic. Really, really great. And hopefully, you know, we have brought lots of his memories back and he’ll live on for another 30 years in fans’ minds as well.
I think it’s magical. There’s something about Senna that just seems to transcend. And we were at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this year. And we were taken on a tour of all the different cars that come back in from the racing. And the one that everyone is crowded around was Senna. And it was multi-generation. So there’s something about we overuse the word legendary, but I think you’re right that the legend of Senna is something that’s quite an extraordinary legend. And it’s such a precious legacy to keep going. And it’s lovely that you’ve made it not just something that’s a beautiful heritage, but also something for today and for tomorrow. That’s really quite a feat, I think.
And you’ve got this announcement that you’ve had recently about your return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is a revival of that real endurance racing heritage. How central, talking about sort of legacy, how central is legacy in shaping the narrative and the future direction of McLaren Racing? Because you’re essentially pulling on what you’ve come from. And by the way, as a brand person, we always say that the heritage is the most important thing because that’s special to you. So you’re almost like the perfect epitome of an example of doing perfect strategy.
Oh, thanks. Glad we’re doing the right thing. I guess you can’t buy that provenance. You just can’t buy it. And as we unpack the brand over the last couple of years, particularly, as you said at the beginning, we weren’t always at the front of the grid. We had this treasure box of incredible brand storytelling moments. And the team are just fresh back from the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which was an incredible… We’re not even… It was just our announcement that we were coming back. And I think all of us have been quite overwhelmed, actually, by the fan reaction. And we’re super excited as we head back there in full force in 2027.
But our legacy is something that really defines us as a team. We’re the second team on the grid, the second oldest team on the grid. We celebrated… We’re 62 years old now. And I think if you look at the team now, we are still defined by many of those things that our founder, Bruce McLaren, set us up for. We’re born racers. There’s a racer mentality which still exists today. It’s part of our racing DNA. Bruce, unfortunately, his untimely death, he died whilst testing his Can-Am car at Goodwood Circuit in 1970. And the mentality then, all of his team didn’t give up. In fact, they went straight back into the factory on Monday morning and they went again. And they went out even harder because they knew that’s what Bruce had wanted.
And fast forward 62 years, and there are many elements of those foundations and that racing spirit, that racing mindset, high performance, which ultimately comes from innovation, consistent pursuit of excellence, which still has to exist within our race team now, right? Because the marginal gains, the opportunities for improvement, you can’t stand stillon our sport or else you’re practically going backwards. And it’s still something that today defines us. And I think that’s really important. So all of that spirit as we resurrect and storytell about our past is so important. I mean, it’s so valuable as a marketeer, as you alluded to, and that provenance. So the return to work is just another fantastic example of going back to that. And we’re looking forward to storytelling even more about all of those stories from the past, which I can now go into and resurrect. Well, it’s really, really rich.
And I think it’s also really interesting, the balance you have, because you’ve got a passion for, you know, your fans are passionate and they know everything. There’s a huge expectation. So obviously there’s quite a lot of responsibility. There’s also a massive amount of competition. So I was just wondering, how do you balance that up? Because part of what you do is kind of out of your control, right? Because it’s what’s happening out there. But you’ve also got this extraordinary ammunition around the heritage, the passion, the inspiration. So when you sort of think about sitting down and deciding what you’re doing next, you’ve got some that you’re in control of, you’ve got some that you’re not in control of. How do you sort of balance all of that?
So my saying over the last couple of years has been control the controllables, right? And I think you raise a really good point there in that, you know, having turned the brand around, we’ve got to set ourselves up for long-term success. And, you know, we’re all in sport because of the highs and lows. The jeopardy of sport is what keeps us there, right? You couldn’t make up some of the stuff that happens every day, and you don’t know what’s going to come next. So actually, by having that underlying growth and foundations of the brand, which has got depth and breadth to it, so that we can lean into the past, but we can also fast forward to the future, is so important because, you know, we didn’t always have that. And it takes time to turn that around. It takes amazing, talented people that have done the work, and also time and investment. And you want to keep that stability because, you know, hopefully we’ll stay at the front for a little while, but there’ll be highs and lows. You know, it’s very different now. We’ve gone from being the hunters to the hunted, and, you know, we feel the pressure all around. You can’t sit still. So I think it’s really important that we’ve got that resilience that we can fall back on when we need it.
Yeah, it’s an amazing way of having a constant heartbeat. I get the impression it’s not a brand you can ever sit on your laurels, literally. You can’t. Literally, not in, yeah.
And so you’ve come to Cannes. Yeah. What are you looking forward to? What is in your sort of head in terms of the week of this very hot Croissette? It’s a very hot Croissette, so trying to keep cool over the next couple of days. But, you know, we’re here. We’ve got Zach and Oscar in town on Thursday, so we’ll be down on Sports Beach, which is hugely exciting. Just seeing the reaction to Oscar a year on. We were here with Lando last year. It’s super exciting. Obviously, where he is now, he’s currently leading the Drivers’ Championship, and being here as the World Constructors’ Championship is very different from where we were last year. And I think beyond that, just the buzz around sport here at Cannes, which I know we witnessed last year, but again, being back here is incredible. And we’re here with lots of our brand partners, which is fantastic to show up and talk about and storytell as we’re doing, really. It makes me really proud. So I’m excited. And actually, you never stop learning. So I’ll be having a sneak peek at what others are doing and seeing what we can take back.
Well, thank you so much. It’s been absolutely brilliant. You’re juggling so many things, but I love the fact that there’s so much emotion as well as smart thinking with everything that you’re doing with the brand. So that’s actually all we’ve got time for. I want to thank you so much for coming into the studio. And to our listeners, thank you very much for listening to The Trustmakers. Thank you for tuning into The Trustmakers, an Edelman podcast in partnership with Advertising Week, where we speak with leaders and other trust builders across institutions. See you next time. Thank you.
