Infiniti puts F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo into a different kind of competition

What do ultra-competitve F1 drivers do during the offseason? According to a new film from Infiniti, team Renault's Daniel Ricciardo spent his summer vying for an entirely different kind of win. 

In fact, the five-minute video (above) sees Ricciardo trying to recapture the title of employee of the month at an Infiniti dealership—an accolade he first enjoyed in a video released in 2015. That work was a hidden-camera affair where Ricciardo posed as a hapless employee to surprise a supposedly real customer. The new film is a purposely cringey comedy filmed in the faux-documentary style of The Office. Ricciardo actually gives a respectable performance as—it must be said—a jerk who terrorises his co-workers and terrifies customers in pursuit of victory.

The film is part of a wider campaign that highlights Infiniti's role as official technical partner to the Renault F1 Team. The brand wants people to know that its expertise in performance hybrid technology went into the energy-recovery system of the racing vehicle's power unit.

The campaign began with an Instagram tease last week, and is continuing with a content takeover on the global Instagram account.

"We adopted an unconventional digital strategy with this campaign," Phil York, senior director of Infiniti Global Marketing, told Campaign Asia-Pacific. "Typically, video content is uploaded to native social networks. We decided on an 'all in one place' approach with multiple traffic-boost sources. The hero video exists on YouTube, centralizing all video views. To create traffic drivers, we then developed social-media toolkits for all Infiniti markets that leverage our owned social audiences." 

The company also formed paid partnerships with key publications, such as Motorsport, to boost the content. It won't hurt that Ricciardo (2.4 million followers), the Renault F1 Team (1 million) and Formula One itself (7.6 million) will also be amplifying.

Tommaso Volpe, director of Infiniti Global Motorsports, said the carmaker's technical partnership with the Renault F1 Team has made Ricciardo a regular on set for Infiniti photo and video shoots. "And often being on the receiving end of his quick wit and cheeky charm, we knew we could step outside traditional Formula One driver content," Volpe said. "The mockumentary style content was a natural fit.”

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