September 9, 2025 • 27 mins
Scuderia Ferrari and IBM are redefining fan engagement with AI-driven insights, and cutting-edge digital tools. Learn how IBM is helping Scuderia Ferrari deepen connections with its almost 400 million fans worldwide, driving innovation and community in the digital age.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I never went to a Formula one race as a
kid because we lived in southern Ontario and there was
just one F one race in Canada. That race was
in Montreal, a good seven hour drive away. I never
watched F one race on television either, because we didn't
have a television. But what I did have was a
subscription to the car magazine Road and Track, and Roadent
(00:35):
Track took F one very seriously. Every month my new
issue would arrive, I would turn immediately to the long
detailed account of that month's race, and I fell in love.
It's been fifty years, but I can still rattle off
the names of all the top drivers of that era
from memory, James Hunt, Mario Andretti, Carlos Pace, Jacqueslafitte, and
(00:58):
of course the greatest of them all, my adolescent idol,
Nikki Lauda, who won two world championships in the mid
nineteen seventies with Scuderia Ferrari.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
He was world championship material in the moment he joined
the Ferrari team.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
There's no question that in seventy five seventy six I
was really dominating the whole thing without any mistake. So
I did nothing wrong I mean this was perfect driving.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
If you had met skinny, pre adolescent Malcolm in the
mid nineteen seventies in rural Ontario, there's a good chance
you would have seen me in my prize Ferrari T shirt.
I was a fan, one of what the Italians called tifosi,
a Ferrari devote, And that's what it meant to be
a fan fifty years ago, t shirts, magazine stories and
a big Nikki lauda poster on your wall. But what
(01:49):
does it mean to be a fan today? Today we
have the Internet and streaming and big data and AI
and all the other accouterment of the digital age. Is
there a chance to reinvent the meaning of fan? My
name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to the latest episode
(02:09):
of Smart Talks with IBM, where we offer our listeners
a glimpse behind the curtain of the world of technology.
In our first episode, we talked about how an AI
assistant created with IBM watsonex helps future teachers practice responsive teaching.
Our second episode was how a custom AI model could
help Loreel's researchers shape the future of what we put
(02:31):
on our faces every morning. In this episode, how IBM
one of the world's pre eminent technology companies, is joining
up with one of the world's pre eminent racing brands
to fundamentally change how fans interact with their favorite team.
The size of the Scuderia Ferrari HB fan base is staggering.
(02:55):
Three hundred and ninety six million people around the world
identify as Ferrari fans. Three hundred and ninety six million.
The only other fan base is that big belong to
the iconic Premier League Football teams like Manchester United or
Chelsea FC. I don't believe there is any other Formula
One team that inspires that kind of devotion. Ferrari's job, then,
(03:18):
isn't to necessarily grow its fan base. Three hundred and
ninety six million is more than enough fans. Their job
is to deepen the connection people feel with the scudery
A Ferrari team. But if I'm Ferrari, how do I
find out more about who my fans are, what they
care about, what they want? How do I use my
archives and data to create experiences that matter to them?
(03:40):
How do I say to the guy who spent his
childhood eagerly reading roadent track every month? Here are other ways?
You can get involved with your favorite F one team.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Today.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
The task of deepening an emotional connection in the digital
age begins as an information problem, which is where IBM
comes in. How would you describe what you do?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I describe it as the probably the best job at IBM.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to
ask you, do you have the best job at IBM?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I'm talking to Fred Baker, who leads sports and Entertainment
for IBM Consulting in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
You can probably guess from the accent he's from New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
We've had a really interesting range of experience over the
past sort of five six years. We've worked with Premier
League clubs like Liverpool Football. We've worked with England Rugby,
Saint Andrew's Links. We also globally, we've got a global team,
so we work with the Masters, the US Open, ESPN,
Fantasy Football, the Grammys.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
You do the tennis stuff. Is it all under Europe?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, so we do Wimbledon as well. Yep, that's under
my remit.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
If you've ever watched Wimbledon on television, I'm sure you've
seen at various moments a little IBM logo on the
bottom of the screen. That's because IBM has been Wimbledon's
official information technology partner since nineteen ninety. When the idea
of a collaboration between Ferrari and IBM was first broached,
Bicker actually took people from Ferrari on a tour of
(05:07):
IBM's Wimbledon operation just so they could see what a
tech company like IBM could do for a sports franchise.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Which Wimbledon.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Did you take them to last year's champs?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Tell me what you showed them.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
We take them into what we call the bunker, so
it's literally underground at the Champs, and showed them how
we bring everything to life from the data capture off
the courts, how we real time categorize, serve all those
points to broadcasters and serve them into the app the
website for millions of fans around the world. They were
really impressed by that.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I'm also impressed by that IBM trained it on the
language of tennis, and not only the language of tennis,
but specifically the language of tennis at Wimbledon.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
So it can then decipher what an unforced era or
a winner or a lob or you know, idiosyncrasies in
the language. It can decipher all of that, and then
it can also tell what is a broadcast like to
talk about that is interesting to a fan. You know,
we've trained it so it can not only analyze everything
going on in the match. It can analyze past performances
(06:13):
and rationalize results based on conditions or form and then
make predictions that fans can learn from. But it can
also pull out on the spot really interesting milestones, moments,
data points that then come out of the mouth of
a broadcaster.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
IBM is running an AI model that has been trained
on huge amounts of tennis data in order to give
human broadcasters ideas on what they can talk about. And
it all takes place underground, right near the courts.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It's literally like it's the underground floor of the broadcast
center at Wimbledon. It's literally almost under the courts.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Is IBM got the entire bunker?
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
How big is the room?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Oh? I'm sure our team would like it to be bigger,
but it's it's big enough. There's probably thirty forty IBM
is down there. Man in the four saying it live
is just really impressive when you see how much work
and intelligence goes on to then make an end experience
for a fan that is really beautiful and representative of
(07:16):
their brand and tradition.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
IBM's goal in taking Ferrari to the Wimbledon Bunker was
to show them what it looks like to harness the
power of data and how this could help shape Scuderia
Ferrari's fan and digital experiences. Could AI learn the language
of Scuderia Ferrari. What was the original app like before
IBM got involved. I'm speaking with Stefano Pollard, who runs
(07:40):
fan development for Ferrari's F one team.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
It was quite a good app, a very good digital product,
but just an editorial product. So we were providing fans
news and videos, articles and it was mainly about that.
The strategy and the idea was trying to use the
app to have a deeper connection and an interaction with
our fans, make it more interactive, so turning it from
(08:04):
an editorial product, which was a very good editorial product,
to a more interactive product, digital product.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
With such a massive undertaking. I asked Stephen how it
all started once IBM got involved.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
We started really with a very long couple of months
of discovery phase. So looking at the current app, looking
at fans, looking at what fans wanted from an app.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Tell me a little bit more about that phrase something
a fan wanted, What is it that the super fan
wasn't getting before? That was something that would tie them
even closer to Ferrari.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Having run some focused group, having having read of market research,
having spoken to fans, and being a fan the strongest
inside is fry. Fans and super fans want to be
part of something, want to belong to something, so they
want to be part of a community, and ultimately they
want to be part of a winning team, so they
(09:00):
want to feel closer and get access.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
The way Stefano said, the opportunity wasn't with race days
when the cars are on the track the tafosi are
already locked in, but there was an opportunity to engage
Ferrari fans on the other days of the week or
during the off season.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Formula One is so much more than just the race.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
This is Fred Baker again.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
What we can do is relive the race and bring
it to life after the facts. We can help them prepare,
we can help them relive the past, and we can
also bring the experience around race weekend to life as
well that, of.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Course, maybe wonder how do you engage fans when there's
not a race happening. Baker says, it all comes back
to data and information. Talk a little about data collection,
because you're talking about a brand with tentacles everywhere, and
you're trying to bring a lot of that stuff together
in the app.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
This is an organization that has for decades used data
for racing the performance. It's not historically use that data
for everyone in the world to see. What we're trying
to do is expose as much of it as we
can to fans. So part of collecting the data, the
challenge with around how you go across all the disparate
different groups that collect data for different purposes. The team
(10:21):
that collects data on tires, the team that has data
on drivers, on whether or on competitors, and so on.
So you're trying to bring all that together and source
it and make sense of it and train our AI
to understand what it means, what things on team radio mean,
what nicknames mean, what abbreviations and slang and idiosyncrasies on
(10:42):
car specifics and track specifics and so on mean. And
you're also trying to design for something that is going
to be fan engaging, but also appropriate to all the
sensitivities of the privacy. That's necessary. So you want it
to be able to do all of that, collect all
the data, produce something for fans in an automated way.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
But in order to design something to expertly engage the tafosi,
it's necessary to understand more about the passion and the
type of national identity behind the fan base. You need
to get inside the mind.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Of the super fan.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
If you wanted to meet some modern day tafosi in
the United States, you could head to a bar in
Midtown Manhattan called Feala. Every race day Formula One fans
gathered Fala to cheer on their favorite drivers, their favorite teams,
and I mean really cheer. I sent our producer Jake
Harper to Fala on the day of the Canadian Grand
(11:40):
Prix so he could see the fandom up close. The
bar gets loud and so crowded it's hard to move Today.
The room is packed with Scuderia Ferrari HP fans.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Even your glasses are Ferrari. I just noticed that.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Jake talked to a Ferrari fan named Gino, who was
dressed head to toe in Ferrari's signature red and black.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
My shoes are Ferrari fully chucked out. They were making
fun of me last time I was here.
Speaker 6 (12:04):
They're like, is your underwear Ferrari? And I texted my
girlfriend like, babe, I need Ferrari underwear.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Did you get it yet?
Speaker 6 (12:11):
Not yet, I'll work on it.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Gino's fandom started with Ferrari as a brand.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
I love the cars. I think the four fifty eight
Scodaria is like the pinnacle of automotive engineering. That's my
dream car. The four point thirty with the glass house
for the engine, I mean, that's They're all gorgeous. There's
always been an aspiration of mine to own one, so
that naturally made me gravitate towards Ferrari. Even when the
company I worked for a sponsored AMG Petronis, I was
(12:39):
secretly like hiding my TPOSI at.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
The races, like Clark Kenton Superman. You're just hiding the
uniform underneath. I love that.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
I love that. Yeah, I was wearing a Ferrari shirt
underneath my suit.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
In one sense, Gino is typical of what Ferrari has
learned about its followers. A lot of F one fans
especially newer fans, are fans of drivers, but the.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Tafosi love Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
It's the oldest brand in Formula One, the only team
that has stuck around since the series was founded in
nineteen fifty. But in another sense, Gino is not typical.
He lives in New York. He can go to Fala
to celebrate f one with other tefosi.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
I'm a big racing fan and coming to this bar,
I found a bunch of people that were in a
f one.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Now I'm at this.
Speaker 6 (13:24):
Bar every weekend, just about with four or five friends
that I made just through racings.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
But lots and lots of Scuderia Ferrari's three hundred and
ninety six million fans don't live in a big city
with a Ferrari bar, and lots of those three hundred
and ninety six million fans aren't the kind of hardcore
fan who dressed head to toe in Ferrari's signature red
and black. A group that large is diverse, necessarily, and
one of the first tasks that IBM and Ferrari set
(13:52):
out to do was to understand the full range of
the Tafosi phenomenon. People like Gino, hardcore fans.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
They were easy.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
They would follow the scudery of Ferrari hb anywhere it
wanted to go. But who else was out there? The
most interesting addition to the f one fan base were
those who watched the phenomenally successful Netflix documentary Drive to Survive.
These tended to be newcomers to the sport, more Americans
than Europeans. What was their emotional perspective? What did they want?
(14:24):
Here's Fred Baker again, the guy with the coolest job
at IBM.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
If I'm a passionate fan, I want to read a
totally different thing on the app to a casual fan
who is of the Netflix Drive to Survive generation versus
you know, some really niche personas that we found that
are super interested but don't find it accessible yet until
we start to deliver to quite different needs that they have.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Working with IBM WATSONEX, Baker and his team began to
develop personas archetypes of all the possible kinds of Ferrari fans.
Because if Ferrari wanted to get better at talking to
their fans, they had to understand who the fans were,
and the personas are helping Ferrari and IBM create an
app that caters to the tafosi in all their iterations.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
How many personas did you come up with?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
I think we had over ten in the end, maybe
a dozen. And this is different archetypes of people. Even
that process is helped by AI, So we train AI
to help us develop out a persona. We can get
really detailed as to what each archetype is and their
hobbies and backgrounds and so on. So our own WATSONEX
helped us in developing those personas, like our research helped
(15:35):
us uncover a segment of middle aged women in China
who Ferrari is a real status symbol and they're really
interested in the Scuderia Ferrari brand and now they can
engage more with it, but it wasn't yet accessible or
inclusive enough for them to feel comfortable doing so. Real
spectrums of fans across those dozen personas that we had
(15:55):
to design for.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Give me some more examples of personas. Can you give
me a couple more just so get a flavor?
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Yeah? Sure. So the other obvious one is the drive
to survive fan and that they're probably not a diehard
all their lives Scuterier Ferrari fan, but they've really got
into the more social side of Formula one that's been
born out of the really popular series Drive to Survive
on Netflix. You then have gamer personas who are into
you know, esports is growing massively in motorsport, and they're
(16:23):
probably not necessarily into the real life racing quite so much,
but they're certainly into gaming. So how do you appeal
to them? Then casual fans who are sort of into
the luxury of scudo Ferrari but not the sport necessarily.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Do the personas have names?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, I mean we give them human names. So we
had a Max, we had an Alfonso. I think we
had a Pedro.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
The woman in China, is she watching F one or
is she interested more in the brand and what it signifies?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yeah, more in the brand and being part of a community.
If I'm that persona in China, then I probably don't
feel like I belong to it truly yet, but I'd
love to feel like I do, so I could start
to become a part of a digital community, learn more
about the brand, probably get access to exclusive merchandise or
you know, if I can't necessarily own a Ferrari car,
(17:11):
which let's face it, not many people can, and if
we're relyinged only on the people who can own a car,
then we're probably not going to get much engagement. So
how do we make others feel that they're still a
part of that community.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
This is what I mean when I say the task
of relating to the Ferrari fan base is a data
and information problem. It's about collecting, organizing, and analyzing the
needs and wants of an enormous pool of people and
speaking to each of them in their own emotional language.
Giving all the work Ford put into understanding Ferrari's fan base,
(17:43):
I was curious to know how his framework would categorize me.
I want to figure out which persona I am. So
I'll describe to you my relationship to Ferrari.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
You tell me so what I am is a huge car?
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Not so?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I like all cars, obsessively collect on a very limited
stage vintage cars, read serious car magazines, spend a lot
of time my car websites. Have a historical relationship to
have one. Because I grew up with Nikki Lauda battling
James Hunt in loudest for our years, I have a
(18:22):
gret nostalgic connection. Went to Italy with my nephew and
went to the Ferrari factory and rented one of those
to drive around, you know, and I follow that F one,
but I wouldn't I would don't think I would ever
go to an I wouldn't fly to Miami for F
one Miami. I wouldn't go that far. And I don't
(18:42):
have time to watch F one on TV on a
regular basis. But I'm interested. And I have a red
Ferrari T shirt which I've been known to wear. And
if you if I ever got really rich, would I
buy it for aur?
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I would.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Okay, So where am I? Where am I in your breakdown?
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:00):
I think you're probably a combination of the I think
it's casual loyalist. It's not going to overtly go out
of their way to sort of spend money on the racing,
but they are loyal to the Ferrari brand and they
have nostalgia with it or whatever it might be. And
then the luxury enthusiasts as well, so and that type
of fan. You're right, We're probably not going to engage
(19:22):
you by doing a ton more on race weekend, but
we can engage you by bringing this hugely rich amount
of archive material, footage, feelings, and past drivers of yesteryear
by bringing them to life.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
In zero an app that you saw another brand doing
that served as a kind of model. I don't mean
within f one, I'm talking about it from any other film.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
On top of being a very sport passionate, I'm, let's say,
a marketing per digital passionate guy. So I have a
lot of apps, and he also for my job, I
tried to look at different markets and different apps.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
As we were talking, I was thinking about Strava. I'm
a huge Stravahead. It's my favorite app. If you don't
already know, Strava is used by millions of active people
around the world. I'm a runner, and the app shows
me a map of where I went, how fast I ran,
what my heart ray was, what the weather was on
and on a you're a cyclostore.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Runner, I'm a runner. I'm a runner.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
I run marathons and ultra marathons. I did let's see
one hundred kilometers.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
As it turns out, Stefano is a Stravahead too. Right
after I spoke to him, I followed him on Strava.
He and I run roughly the same distance every day
at the same pace. And if I'm ever in Milan.
I'm almost certainly going to look him up to see
if he'll take me out on one of his favorite
routes through the city. This is what I love about Strava.
You can find people to run with and interact with.
(20:54):
Strava is a community of like minded people and for
those like me, the Strava app become a regular part
of my daily routine. And that's what Stephano wanted for
the Ferrari a. Are you interested in allowing creating sort
of robust forums for Ferrari fans to communicate with each other?
Speaker 5 (21:13):
I think you have to work in three directions. So
direction number one is a Ferrari to fans, so providing
them something which is compelling, which has value, and this
I think we're already doing and we're working on it.
Second way is fans to Ferrari, so help like allowing
fans to better interact with us, which was something we
(21:35):
were not doing with the previous app. For example, we
have just introduced two features which are polls, so basic ones,
but polls and the possibility like the submit your message feature.
So really to work on the way fans to Ferrari.
And then the third important way to build a community
and nurture community is like fans to fans.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
So if you were.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Able to work on those trae dimensions of Ferrari to fans,
fans to Ferrari, fans to fans, that's how you could
really create a strong community and start really monetizing and
creating value. I think we're very strong in the first
dimension right now. We're building the second one, so fans
to Ferrari, and then definitely the third one has to
(22:16):
be there in order to have a complete community engagement.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
So let's talk about results.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Scuddery of Ferrari HP launched the new app at the
Miami Grand Prix in twenty twenty five, incorporating AI elements
and tailoring it to those archetypes. Was talking about, are
more people using the app? Are users spending more time
on it they did on the older version of the app?
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Yes, we doubled these months the daily active users we
were having last season, so compared to the average of
twenty twenty four season, we have more than double of
daily active users. Also, we're doubling normal months down down loads,
so we did in these months more than two times
down load we are doing in a normal months. We
(23:02):
are increasing by thirty five percent the average time spent
on app. So keepy eyes are good.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
If you build the right app, they will come for generations.
Fans of all varieties have met in public places, the
stands of stadiums, in bars, to watch races and matches
on television. But there's a chance now for fandom to
exist on a higher and broader level, for a community
(23:30):
to be created over the Internet, even when the fans
are vastly different people who live vast distances apart. I
could imagine Gino in his Ferrari Red and Black, using
the scudery of Ferrari app relating to me as I
relive my memories of Niki Lauder from the nineteen seventies.
Maybe I could use the app to learn something from
(23:52):
the woman in China, the Tefosie newcomer, or some seventeen
year old who got sucked in first by drive to survive.
Imagine myself as part of that vision, taking my lifelong
obsession to the next level. Smart Talks with IBM is
(24:21):
produced by Matt Ramano, Amy Gains McQuaid, Trina Menino, and
Jake Harper were edited by Lacy Roberts. Engineering by Nina
Bird Lawrence Mastering by Sarah Buguer, music by Gramoscope, Strategy
by Tatiana Lieberman and Cassidy Meyer. Special thanks to Scuderia
Ferrari HP and the bar and restaurant Feala in New
(24:43):
York City. Smart Talks with IBM is a production of
Pushkin Industries and Ruby Studio at iHeartMedia. To find more
Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Malcolm Glavo. This is
paid advertisement from IBM. The conversations on this podcast don't
(25:04):
necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions. I asked Fred
Baker to come up with a hypothetical something that could
fulfill my childhood dreams, something that this type of technology
(25:27):
could theoretically do that might appeal to a fan like me,
someone who's interested in the sport went back fifty years.
He said, what about using AI to bring historical cars
to life?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Bringing to live cars of the past and allows fans
to simulate a nineteen fifty Ferrari race versus nineteen seventy
one to see who which car would be faster. So
it's those sorts of trade offs.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Wait, you could do it? Wait you could do that?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Tell me about last thing you said you can run
simulations out of the app.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
You can't out of the app at this point, So.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
No, take I know potentially potentially.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, yeah, it can, you know, simulates based on a
whole range of factors that we can feed and train
it on.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Wait, so I could hypothetically you could allow me to
compare Niki Lauder, for example, to a contemporary driver, and
and I could say if I put Nicki Lauder in
a contemporary car, what you're saying is that there is
a scenario where I could recreate that era in modern
(26:32):
cars and get a sense of how my childhood heroes
were performing would have performed a breast day.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, yeah, So you can analyze and understand how you
would rank all drivers of all time based on the
different traits of a driver, right, So you can say
who's the best late breaking, who's who was typically the
best on a tight track with limited overtaking opportunities, who
was the best overtaker, who was the best of all
these traits? You then apply those traits and rankings to
different tracks and different cars where you know different some
(26:59):
different cars are better for a late breaker, some different
cars are better for a you know, on straights and
so on. So you can simulate. You could hypothetically allow
fans to simulate any scenario. You could say, who's going
to win in Monaco on a nineteen eighty model car.
You can put a current driver in a nineteen to
eighty car equally, So you can do all sorts of
fun and simulations.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
And that's just the beginning.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I never went to a Formula one race as a
kid because we lived in southern Ontario and there was
just one F one race in Canada. That race was
in Montreal, a good seven hour drive away. I never
watched F one race on television either, because we didn't
have a television. But what I did have was a
subscription to the car magazine Road and Track, and Roadent
(00:35):
Track took F one very seriously. Every month my new
issue would arrive, I would turn immediately to the long
detailed account of that month's race, and I fell in love.
It's been fifty years, but I can still rattle off
the names of all the top drivers of that era
from memory, James Hunt, Mario Andretti, Carlos Pace, Jacqueslafitte, and
(00:58):
of course the greatest of them all, my adolescent idol,
Nikki Lauda, who won two world championships in the mid
nineteen seventies with Scuderia Ferrari.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
He was world championship material in the moment he joined
the Ferrari team.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
There's no question that in seventy five seventy six I
was really dominating the whole thing without any mistake. So
I did nothing wrong I mean this was perfect driving.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
If you had met skinny, pre adolescent Malcolm in the
mid nineteen seventies in rural Ontario, there's a good chance
you would have seen me in my prize Ferrari T shirt.
I was a fan, one of what the Italians called tifosi,
a Ferrari devote, And that's what it meant to be
a fan fifty years ago, t shirts, magazine stories and
a big Nikki lauda poster on your wall. But what
(01:49):
does it mean to be a fan today? Today we
have the Internet and streaming and big data and AI
and all the other accouterment of the digital age. Is
there a chance to reinvent the meaning of fan? My
name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to the latest episode
(02:09):
of Smart Talks with IBM, where we offer our listeners
a glimpse behind the curtain of the world of technology.
In our first episode, we talked about how an AI
assistant created with IBM watsonex helps future teachers practice responsive teaching.
Our second episode was how a custom AI model could
help Loreel's researchers shape the future of what we put
(02:31):
on our faces every morning. In this episode, how IBM
one of the world's pre eminent technology companies, is joining
up with one of the world's pre eminent racing brands
to fundamentally change how fans interact with their favorite team.
The size of the Scuderia Ferrari HB fan base is staggering.
(02:55):
Three hundred and ninety six million people around the world
identify as Ferrari fans. Three hundred and ninety six million.
The only other fan base is that big belong to
the iconic Premier League Football teams like Manchester United or
Chelsea FC. I don't believe there is any other Formula
One team that inspires that kind of devotion. Ferrari's job, then,
(03:18):
isn't to necessarily grow its fan base. Three hundred and
ninety six million is more than enough fans. Their job
is to deepen the connection people feel with the scudery
A Ferrari team. But if I'm Ferrari, how do I
find out more about who my fans are, what they
care about, what they want? How do I use my
archives and data to create experiences that matter to them?
(03:40):
How do I say to the guy who spent his
childhood eagerly reading roadent track every month? Here are other ways?
You can get involved with your favorite F one team.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Today.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
The task of deepening an emotional connection in the digital
age begins as an information problem, which is where IBM
comes in. How would you describe what you do?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I describe it as the probably the best job at IBM.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to
ask you, do you have the best job at IBM?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
I'm talking to Fred Baker, who leads sports and Entertainment
for IBM Consulting in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
You can probably guess from the accent he's from New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
We've had a really interesting range of experience over the
past sort of five six years. We've worked with Premier
League clubs like Liverpool Football. We've worked with England Rugby,
Saint Andrew's Links. We also globally, we've got a global team,
so we work with the Masters, the US Open, ESPN,
Fantasy Football, the Grammys.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
You do the tennis stuff. Is it all under Europe?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, so we do Wimbledon as well. Yep, that's under
my remit.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
If you've ever watched Wimbledon on television, I'm sure you've
seen at various moments a little IBM logo on the
bottom of the screen. That's because IBM has been Wimbledon's
official information technology partner since nineteen ninety. When the idea
of a collaboration between Ferrari and IBM was first broached,
Bicker actually took people from Ferrari on a tour of
(05:07):
IBM's Wimbledon operation just so they could see what a
tech company like IBM could do for a sports franchise.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Which Wimbledon.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Did you take them to last year's champs?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Tell me what you showed them.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
We take them into what we call the bunker, so
it's literally underground at the Champs, and showed them how
we bring everything to life from the data capture off
the courts, how we real time categorize, serve all those
points to broadcasters and serve them into the app the
website for millions of fans around the world. They were
really impressed by that.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I'm also impressed by that IBM trained it on the
language of tennis, and not only the language of tennis,
but specifically the language of tennis at Wimbledon.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
So it can then decipher what an unforced era or
a winner or a lob or you know, idiosyncrasies in
the language. It can decipher all of that, and then
it can also tell what is a broadcast like to
talk about that is interesting to a fan. You know,
we've trained it so it can not only analyze everything
going on in the match. It can analyze past performances
(06:13):
and rationalize results based on conditions or form and then
make predictions that fans can learn from. But it can
also pull out on the spot really interesting milestones, moments,
data points that then come out of the mouth of
a broadcaster.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
IBM is running an AI model that has been trained
on huge amounts of tennis data in order to give
human broadcasters ideas on what they can talk about. And
it all takes place underground, right near the courts.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It's literally like it's the underground floor of the broadcast
center at Wimbledon. It's literally almost under the courts.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Is IBM got the entire bunker?
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
How big is the room?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Oh? I'm sure our team would like it to be bigger,
but it's it's big enough. There's probably thirty forty IBM
is down there. Man in the four saying it live
is just really impressive when you see how much work
and intelligence goes on to then make an end experience
for a fan that is really beautiful and representative of
(07:16):
their brand and tradition.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
IBM's goal in taking Ferrari to the Wimbledon Bunker was
to show them what it looks like to harness the
power of data and how this could help shape Scuderia
Ferrari's fan and digital experiences. Could AI learn the language
of Scuderia Ferrari. What was the original app like before
IBM got involved. I'm speaking with Stefano Pollard, who runs
(07:40):
fan development for Ferrari's F one team.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
It was quite a good app, a very good digital product,
but just an editorial product. So we were providing fans
news and videos, articles and it was mainly about that.
The strategy and the idea was trying to use the
app to have a deeper connection and an interaction with
our fans, make it more interactive, so turning it from
(08:04):
an editorial product, which was a very good editorial product,
to a more interactive product, digital product.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
With such a massive undertaking. I asked Stephen how it
all started once IBM got involved.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
We started really with a very long couple of months
of discovery phase. So looking at the current app, looking
at fans, looking at what fans wanted from an app.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Tell me a little bit more about that phrase something
a fan wanted, What is it that the super fan
wasn't getting before? That was something that would tie them
even closer to Ferrari.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Having run some focused group, having having read of market research,
having spoken to fans, and being a fan the strongest
inside is fry. Fans and super fans want to be
part of something, want to belong to something, so they
want to be part of a community, and ultimately they
want to be part of a winning team, so they
(09:00):
want to feel closer and get access.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
The way Stefano said, the opportunity wasn't with race days
when the cars are on the track the tafosi are
already locked in, but there was an opportunity to engage
Ferrari fans on the other days of the week or
during the off season.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Formula One is so much more than just the race.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
This is Fred Baker again.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
What we can do is relive the race and bring
it to life after the facts. We can help them prepare,
we can help them relive the past, and we can
also bring the experience around race weekend to life as
well that, of.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Course, maybe wonder how do you engage fans when there's
not a race happening. Baker says, it all comes back
to data and information. Talk a little about data collection,
because you're talking about a brand with tentacles everywhere, and
you're trying to bring a lot of that stuff together
in the app.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
This is an organization that has for decades used data
for racing the performance. It's not historically use that data
for everyone in the world to see. What we're trying
to do is expose as much of it as we
can to fans. So part of collecting the data, the
challenge with around how you go across all the disparate
different groups that collect data for different purposes. The team
(10:21):
that collects data on tires, the team that has data
on drivers, on whether or on competitors, and so on.
So you're trying to bring all that together and source
it and make sense of it and train our AI
to understand what it means, what things on team radio mean,
what nicknames mean, what abbreviations and slang and idiosyncrasies on
(10:42):
car specifics and track specifics and so on mean. And
you're also trying to design for something that is going
to be fan engaging, but also appropriate to all the
sensitivities of the privacy. That's necessary. So you want it
to be able to do all of that, collect all
the data, produce something for fans in an automated way.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
But in order to design something to expertly engage the tafosi,
it's necessary to understand more about the passion and the
type of national identity behind the fan base. You need
to get inside the mind.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Of the super fan.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
If you wanted to meet some modern day tafosi in
the United States, you could head to a bar in
Midtown Manhattan called Feala. Every race day Formula One fans
gathered Fala to cheer on their favorite drivers, their favorite teams,
and I mean really cheer. I sent our producer Jake
Harper to Fala on the day of the Canadian Grand
(11:40):
Prix so he could see the fandom up close. The
bar gets loud and so crowded it's hard to move Today.
The room is packed with Scuderia Ferrari HP fans.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Even your glasses are Ferrari. I just noticed that.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Jake talked to a Ferrari fan named Gino, who was
dressed head to toe in Ferrari's signature red and black.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
My shoes are Ferrari fully chucked out. They were making
fun of me last time I was here.
Speaker 6 (12:04):
They're like, is your underwear Ferrari? And I texted my
girlfriend like, babe, I need Ferrari underwear.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Did you get it yet?
Speaker 6 (12:11):
Not yet, I'll work on it.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Gino's fandom started with Ferrari as a brand.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
I love the cars. I think the four fifty eight
Scodaria is like the pinnacle of automotive engineering. That's my
dream car. The four point thirty with the glass house
for the engine, I mean, that's They're all gorgeous. There's
always been an aspiration of mine to own one, so
that naturally made me gravitate towards Ferrari. Even when the
company I worked for a sponsored AMG Petronis, I was
(12:39):
secretly like hiding my TPOSI at.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
The races, like Clark Kenton Superman. You're just hiding the
uniform underneath. I love that.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
I love that. Yeah, I was wearing a Ferrari shirt
underneath my suit.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
In one sense, Gino is typical of what Ferrari has
learned about its followers. A lot of F one fans
especially newer fans, are fans of drivers, but the.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Tafosi love Ferrari.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
It's the oldest brand in Formula One, the only team
that has stuck around since the series was founded in
nineteen fifty. But in another sense, Gino is not typical.
He lives in New York. He can go to Fala
to celebrate f one with other tefosi.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
I'm a big racing fan and coming to this bar,
I found a bunch of people that were in a
f one.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Now I'm at this.
Speaker 6 (13:24):
Bar every weekend, just about with four or five friends
that I made just through racings.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
But lots and lots of Scuderia Ferrari's three hundred and
ninety six million fans don't live in a big city
with a Ferrari bar, and lots of those three hundred
and ninety six million fans aren't the kind of hardcore
fan who dressed head to toe in Ferrari's signature red
and black. A group that large is diverse, necessarily, and
one of the first tasks that IBM and Ferrari set
(13:52):
out to do was to understand the full range of
the Tafosi phenomenon. People like Gino, hardcore fans.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
They were easy.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
They would follow the scudery of Ferrari hb anywhere it
wanted to go. But who else was out there? The
most interesting addition to the f one fan base were
those who watched the phenomenally successful Netflix documentary Drive to Survive.
These tended to be newcomers to the sport, more Americans
than Europeans. What was their emotional perspective? What did they want?
(14:24):
Here's Fred Baker again, the guy with the coolest job
at IBM.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
If I'm a passionate fan, I want to read a
totally different thing on the app to a casual fan
who is of the Netflix Drive to Survive generation versus
you know, some really niche personas that we found that
are super interested but don't find it accessible yet until
we start to deliver to quite different needs that they have.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Working with IBM WATSONEX, Baker and his team began to
develop personas archetypes of all the possible kinds of Ferrari fans.
Because if Ferrari wanted to get better at talking to
their fans, they had to understand who the fans were,
and the personas are helping Ferrari and IBM create an
app that caters to the tafosi in all their iterations.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
How many personas did you come up with?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
I think we had over ten in the end, maybe
a dozen. And this is different archetypes of people. Even
that process is helped by AI, So we train AI
to help us develop out a persona. We can get
really detailed as to what each archetype is and their
hobbies and backgrounds and so on. So our own WATSONEX
helped us in developing those personas, like our research helped
(15:35):
us uncover a segment of middle aged women in China
who Ferrari is a real status symbol and they're really
interested in the Scuderia Ferrari brand and now they can
engage more with it, but it wasn't yet accessible or
inclusive enough for them to feel comfortable doing so. Real
spectrums of fans across those dozen personas that we had
(15:55):
to design for.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Give me some more examples of personas. Can you give
me a couple more just so get a flavor?
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Yeah? Sure. So the other obvious one is the drive
to survive fan and that they're probably not a diehard
all their lives Scuterier Ferrari fan, but they've really got
into the more social side of Formula one that's been
born out of the really popular series Drive to Survive
on Netflix. You then have gamer personas who are into
you know, esports is growing massively in motorsport, and they're
(16:23):
probably not necessarily into the real life racing quite so much,
but they're certainly into gaming. So how do you appeal
to them? Then casual fans who are sort of into
the luxury of scudo Ferrari but not the sport necessarily.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Do the personas have names?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Yeah, I mean we give them human names. So we
had a Max, we had an Alfonso. I think we
had a Pedro.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
The woman in China, is she watching F one or
is she interested more in the brand and what it signifies?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yeah, more in the brand and being part of a community.
If I'm that persona in China, then I probably don't
feel like I belong to it truly yet, but I'd
love to feel like I do, so I could start
to become a part of a digital community, learn more
about the brand, probably get access to exclusive merchandise or
you know, if I can't necessarily own a Ferrari car,
(17:11):
which let's face it, not many people can, and if
we're relyinged only on the people who can own a car,
then we're probably not going to get much engagement. So
how do we make others feel that they're still a
part of that community.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
This is what I mean when I say the task
of relating to the Ferrari fan base is a data
and information problem. It's about collecting, organizing, and analyzing the
needs and wants of an enormous pool of people and
speaking to each of them in their own emotional language.
Giving all the work Ford put into understanding Ferrari's fan base,
(17:43):
I was curious to know how his framework would categorize me.
I want to figure out which persona I am. So
I'll describe to you my relationship to Ferrari.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
You tell me so what I am is a huge car?
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Not so?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
I like all cars, obsessively collect on a very limited
stage vintage cars, read serious car magazines, spend a lot
of time my car websites. Have a historical relationship to
have one. Because I grew up with Nikki Lauda battling
James Hunt in loudest for our years, I have a
(18:22):
gret nostalgic connection. Went to Italy with my nephew and
went to the Ferrari factory and rented one of those
to drive around, you know, and I follow that F one,
but I wouldn't I would don't think I would ever
go to an I wouldn't fly to Miami for F
one Miami. I wouldn't go that far. And I don't
(18:42):
have time to watch F one on TV on a
regular basis. But I'm interested. And I have a red
Ferrari T shirt which I've been known to wear. And
if you if I ever got really rich, would I
buy it for aur?
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I would.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Okay, So where am I? Where am I in your breakdown?
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:00):
I think you're probably a combination of the I think
it's casual loyalist. It's not going to overtly go out
of their way to sort of spend money on the racing,
but they are loyal to the Ferrari brand and they
have nostalgia with it or whatever it might be. And
then the luxury enthusiasts as well, so and that type
of fan. You're right, We're probably not going to engage
(19:22):
you by doing a ton more on race weekend, but
we can engage you by bringing this hugely rich amount
of archive material, footage, feelings, and past drivers of yesteryear
by bringing them to life.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
In zero an app that you saw another brand doing
that served as a kind of model. I don't mean
within f one, I'm talking about it from any other film.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
On top of being a very sport passionate, I'm, let's say,
a marketing per digital passionate guy. So I have a
lot of apps, and he also for my job, I
tried to look at different markets and different apps.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
As we were talking, I was thinking about Strava. I'm
a huge Stravahead. It's my favorite app. If you don't
already know, Strava is used by millions of active people
around the world. I'm a runner, and the app shows
me a map of where I went, how fast I ran,
what my heart ray was, what the weather was on
and on a you're a cyclostore.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Runner, I'm a runner. I'm a runner.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
I run marathons and ultra marathons. I did let's see
one hundred kilometers.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
As it turns out, Stefano is a Stravahead too. Right
after I spoke to him, I followed him on Strava.
He and I run roughly the same distance every day
at the same pace. And if I'm ever in Milan.
I'm almost certainly going to look him up to see
if he'll take me out on one of his favorite
routes through the city. This is what I love about Strava.
You can find people to run with and interact with.
(20:54):
Strava is a community of like minded people and for
those like me, the Strava app become a regular part
of my daily routine. And that's what Stephano wanted for
the Ferrari a. Are you interested in allowing creating sort
of robust forums for Ferrari fans to communicate with each other?
Speaker 5 (21:13):
I think you have to work in three directions. So
direction number one is a Ferrari to fans, so providing
them something which is compelling, which has value, and this
I think we're already doing and we're working on it.
Second way is fans to Ferrari, so help like allowing
fans to better interact with us, which was something we
(21:35):
were not doing with the previous app. For example, we
have just introduced two features which are polls, so basic ones,
but polls and the possibility like the submit your message feature.
So really to work on the way fans to Ferrari.
And then the third important way to build a community
and nurture community is like fans to fans.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
So if you were.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Able to work on those trae dimensions of Ferrari to fans,
fans to Ferrari, fans to fans, that's how you could
really create a strong community and start really monetizing and
creating value. I think we're very strong in the first
dimension right now. We're building the second one, so fans
to Ferrari, and then definitely the third one has to
(22:16):
be there in order to have a complete community engagement.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
So let's talk about results.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Scuddery of Ferrari HP launched the new app at the
Miami Grand Prix in twenty twenty five, incorporating AI elements
and tailoring it to those archetypes. Was talking about, are
more people using the app? Are users spending more time
on it they did on the older version of the app?
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Yes, we doubled these months the daily active users we
were having last season, so compared to the average of
twenty twenty four season, we have more than double of
daily active users. Also, we're doubling normal months down down loads,
so we did in these months more than two times
down load we are doing in a normal months. We
(23:02):
are increasing by thirty five percent the average time spent
on app. So keepy eyes are good.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
If you build the right app, they will come for generations.
Fans of all varieties have met in public places, the
stands of stadiums, in bars, to watch races and matches
on television. But there's a chance now for fandom to
exist on a higher and broader level, for a community
(23:30):
to be created over the Internet, even when the fans
are vastly different people who live vast distances apart. I
could imagine Gino in his Ferrari Red and Black, using
the scudery of Ferrari app relating to me as I
relive my memories of Niki Lauder from the nineteen seventies.
Maybe I could use the app to learn something from
(23:52):
the woman in China, the Tefosie newcomer, or some seventeen
year old who got sucked in first by drive to survive.
Imagine myself as part of that vision, taking my lifelong
obsession to the next level. Smart Talks with IBM is
(24:21):
produced by Matt Ramano, Amy Gains McQuaid, Trina Menino, and
Jake Harper were edited by Lacy Roberts. Engineering by Nina
Bird Lawrence Mastering by Sarah Buguer, music by Gramoscope, Strategy
by Tatiana Lieberman and Cassidy Meyer. Special thanks to Scuderia
Ferrari HP and the bar and restaurant Feala in New
(24:43):
York City. Smart Talks with IBM is a production of
Pushkin Industries and Ruby Studio at iHeartMedia. To find more
Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Malcolm Glavo. This is
paid advertisement from IBM. The conversations on this podcast don't
(25:04):
necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions. I asked Fred
Baker to come up with a hypothetical something that could
fulfill my childhood dreams, something that this type of technology
(25:27):
could theoretically do that might appeal to a fan like me,
someone who's interested in the sport went back fifty years.
He said, what about using AI to bring historical cars
to life?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Bringing to live cars of the past and allows fans
to simulate a nineteen fifty Ferrari race versus nineteen seventy
one to see who which car would be faster. So
it's those sorts of trade offs.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Wait, you could do it? Wait you could do that?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Tell me about last thing you said you can run
simulations out of the app.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
You can't out of the app at this point, So.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
No, take I know potentially potentially.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, yeah, it can, you know, simulates based on a
whole range of factors that we can feed and train
it on.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Wait, so I could hypothetically you could allow me to
compare Niki Lauder, for example, to a contemporary driver, and
and I could say if I put Nicki Lauder in
a contemporary car, what you're saying is that there is
a scenario where I could recreate that era in modern
(26:32):
cars and get a sense of how my childhood heroes
were performing would have performed a breast day.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, yeah, So you can analyze and understand how you
would rank all drivers of all time based on the
different traits of a driver, right, So you can say
who's the best late breaking, who's who was typically the
best on a tight track with limited overtaking opportunities, who
was the best overtaker, who was the best of all
these traits? You then apply those traits and rankings to
different tracks and different cars where you know different some
(26:59):
different cars are better for a late breaker, some different
cars are better for a you know, on straights and
so on. So you can simulate. You could hypothetically allow
fans to simulate any scenario. You could say, who's going
to win in Monaco on a nineteen eighty model car.
You can put a current driver in a nineteen to
eighty car equally, So you can do all sorts of
fun and simulations.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
And that's just the beginning.
Host
Malcolm Gladwell
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