Diagonal Diary: Embarrassing throwbacks, Las Vegas race tracks and a new marketing brochure
Monday 21st October:
The week at Diagonal Comms begins with a focus on our client the British Touring Car Championship. Owing to the continual strong performances of short-form, interactive content on social media, we publish the first video from a series where our BTCC media team gives each of the 20 drivers a picture of their younger selves to sign. In this edition, we present Toyota Gazoo Racing UK’s Rob Huff, Team Bristol Street Motors’ Dan Zelos, NAPA Racing UK’s Ash Sutton and Team BMW’s Adam Morgan with pictures of their fresh faces and are met with some suitably humorous responses…
The video has attracted almost 30,000 views on Instagram alone and more episodes will follow this week. You can watch them now on the BTCC’s social media pages.
Tuesday 22nd October:
Our MD Matt Bishop’s latest column for Motorsport Magazine is published. In the fallout from the 2024 United States Grand Prix, which saw a controversial clash between title rivals Max Verstappen and Lando Norris and a dominant one-two finish for Scuderia Ferrari, at the Hermann Tilke-designed Circuit of the Americas, Matt ranks every circuit that has hosted the US Grand Prix in Formula 1’s history.
Matt, of course, touches briefly on the incident that has ignited much debate on social media since last weekend’s race, before inevitably ranking the Caesars Palace circuit, the first race track to host a race in Las Vegas, at the bottom of his list. You can find out how the other 11 US Grand Prix host circuits stack up here.
In our City of London office, a large portion of our focus is on editing video and photo content from when the Renaissance Foundation, a London-based charity whose mission is to help young carers and patients reach their full potential, attended the final round of the BTCC season at Brands Hatch as part of a special activation devised by Diagonal Comms. Our efforts culminate in a horizontal, long-form video, two pieces of vertical, short-form content from the group’s activities, and a collection of photos.
Wednesday 23rd October:
Our day begins with a fascinating online call with an American company engaged in high-level motorsport. We can’t tell you more than that for now but we hope we are able to soon…
Following the meeting, we make some final changes to our set of content from the Renaissance Foundation’s visit to Brands Hatch for the BTCC finale and then shift our attention to producing a short video for the BTCC in partnership with LIQUI MOLY, German motor oil and additive manufacturer and Official Oil and Lubricants Partner of the series. The video consists predominantly of on-track clips, maximising the intensity of high-octane trackside action captured by our BTCC media team throughout recent race weekends.
Thursday 24th October:
Episode four from season two of And Colossally That’s History, the podcast hosted by Matt Bishop and Richard Williams, is published. The duo look back to 1995 when McLaren won the 24 Hours of Le Mans on its first attempt – a feat then completed only by Ferrari – with JJ Lehto, Yannick Dalmas and Masanori Sekiya behind the wheel of a McLaren F1 GTR. McLaren filled four of the top five positions with their mighty F1 GTRs that day, underlining a truly successful display at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
You can listen to the full podcast here, where Matt and Richard also discuss McLaren’s motorsport heritage, how the roadgoing ‘McLaren F1’ acquired its somewhat confusing name and much, much more.
Rather on topic, in our City of London office, we have an interesting face-to-face meeting with a promising young British sportscar racer who is embarking on the ‘road to Le Mans’.
Today marks the final day of voting for the inaugural BTCC Fans’ Choice Award. Our BTCC media team selected 10 unforgettable moments or season-long achievements that helped form a special 2024, including Jake Hill’s maiden championship victory, Tom Ingram’s mighty fight through the field to second place from 19th on the grid at Donington Park and NAPA Racing UK’s Teams’ title hat-trick. The winner will be announced at this year’s TOCA Awards.
Friday 25th October:
We round out the week working all hands on deck on the BTCC’s yearly marketing brochure, which contains a plethora of information about the 2024 season, what’s to come in 2025, important statistics regarding the series’ success, and much more.
In parallel, we complete a coverage report for our client Asetek SimSports, the Danish sim racing hardware manufacturer, focused on the success of its Invicta Steering Wheel launch. Inspired by real-life Formula cars, the Invicta Steering Wheel channels Asetek’s long history of innovation, engineering excellence and real-world racing experience, and represents the pinnacle of its steering wheel lineup. You can learn more about it here.
