McLaren: Hiding sponsors

The construction of the site means that important sponsors are being given a less satisfactory treatment for their money.

The Site

McLaren, the UK-based Formula One racing team, uses its website to keep fans and the media up to speed with developments on and off the track as well as providing background on the team and its history.

The McLaren & Partners section of the site includes pages for corporate, technology, associate and official supporters. A framed window within each page displays the logos of the sponsoring companies along with a line of text under each characterising its business. The Corporate Partners page was promptly refreshed last week to coincide with McLaren’s public unveiling of a new deal with US telecoms giant AT&T. However, several of the logos on this and the other partners pages are visible only by scrolling down the window.

The Takeaway

Full marks to McLaren for integrating its website in the public relations activities round the new AT&T sponsorship. But the construction of the site means that other equally important sponsors are being given a less satisfactory treatment for their money.

Design and technology are critical to McLaren’s performance as a business and racing team, so it is important that its website reinforce these brand characteristics. But as with many sites where design and technology hold sway, this has led to less than optimum use of content. The framed logos window is too small to show off the full content on all pages, with the result that several partner companies are hidden when a page opens (and may remain unseen if users miss or ignore the scrolling device). This creates a hierarchy of exposure that puts some sponsors at the back of the publicity grid, a position no one in Formula One is happy to occupy.

First published on 18 January, 2005