We need to talk about that WRC social media ad featuring the recent Ott Tänak crash: next-level tastelessness in motorsports marketing?

By Bill Hayward

Ott Tänak crash in a screenshot from a World Rally Championship (WRC) social media ad.
Screenshot by AutoNewsblaster of a social media ad from the World Rally Championship (WRC).

First things first: both driver and navigator were fine after the Ott Tänak crash at Rallye Monte Carlo last month. On January 24, the Estonian driver’s rally car hit a bump while navigating a sharp curve at speed. The Hyundai i20 bounced off the edge of the road and flipped several times before coming to rest on an embankment. On the video, posted by WRC as part of a social media advertisement, Tänak’s car seems to narrowly miss an even more terrifying tumble over a sheer drop-off. 

Tänak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja fortunately walked away from the wreck and checked out just fine after a precautionary hospital visit. Currently, they’re back in action at Rally Sweden, as Ott Tänak continues to defend his winning run in the 2019 World Rally Championship (WRC), after which he surprised the motorsports world by jumping ship from Toyota Gazoo Racing to Hyundai’s WRC team.

An unwavering rise to the next challenge after narrowly escaping what could have been a great tragedy is, of course, one of those dramatic (in a good way) moments that can make a sport so much more meaningful as a demonstration of the power of human determination to prevail over adversity.

That’s admirable. But this week, while scrolling through my Instagram feed, I noticed something from the WRC that arguably is not so admirable. It was a video ad promoting the WRC’s livestreaming service, and it featured segments from several crashes, including the recent Ott Tänak crash at Monte Carlo.

Yes, sports fans—less than three weeks after Tänak and Jarveoja survived a crash that, if things had gone just a little differently, could quite easily have killed them, the WRC—or, more likely, a marketing firm that represents them—is using their crash to bait clicks and sell video subscriptions.

The placement of the ad in the feed seemed aggressive. It promptly followed me from Instagram to Facebook.

It’s worth noting that WRC has a much stronger following in Europe than in the United States.

For example, the WRC was barely on my radar until last year when I covered a couple of Tänak’s victories in the 2019 series, after becoming intrigued with the notion that the Toyota Yaris, a vehicle that has such humble sales and perception in the U.S. market, is actually a motorsports staple on the international rally circuit.

So, given the limited following on this side of the pond, it seems likely that audience-building in the U.S. is an important objective of the WRC’s social media campaign.

There is nothing wrong with trying to boost their audience by calling attention to the exhilarating challenges and feats that are part and parcel with this intense variety of rally racing.

But as a motorsports fan I have a problem with using the worst aspect of motorsports—the potential for tragic crashes that every fan and driver knows is an ever-present possibility—as an appeal to win new paying livestream subscribers.

The ad suggests a cynicism on the part of those who created it, as if they believe that motorsports fans are inclined to watch so that they can see the crashes. That’s a lot like suggesting that NFL fans watch to see the players get injured.

A marketing appeal of this nature seems especially questionable as we come out of 2019 as a year that, sadly, included some high-profile motorsports deaths, including—in the same month, no less—North American Eagle Project racer and television personality Jessi Combs and Formula 2 Racer Anthoine Hubert.

Now, I am realistic enough to understand that within the audience of any sport there is probably a contingent that does succumb to the darker areas of the soul and relish those moments of spectacle and tragedy that can occur.

Maybe that’s why, when I posted a comment questioning the taste of the ad, a fellow viewer of the Instagram spot responded with a remark that motorsports accidents are a way of “weeding out the weak.”

But I’m not cynical enough to believe that the contingent who would watch motorsports to see the accidents, or NFL football to see the injuries, are anywhere near a majority of any sport’s fandom.

I think motorsports fans are better than that, and that most of us watch to behold and share in the triumphant achievements of man and machines, and the feats of individual participants like Tänak who courageously return from adversity to once again face the challenges and dangers they know are always present every time they get behind the wheel.

Out of fairness, I wanted to give officials from WRC or its organizing body, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the opportunity to share their side of the story in this opinion piece.

Update: the WRC’s side of the story

We reached out to both the WRC and FIA asking them to clarify the thinking behind their social media ad featuring the Ott Tänak crash and whether they find the idea defensible of spotlighting crashes to help sell livestream subscriptions.

And on February 18, the WRC kindly obliged.

“Firstly, let me be clear that it is not, and never will be, our policy to use serious accidents in which members of a competing crew suffer injury as a promotional tool on our platforms,” related Mark Wilford, WRC PR/Communications Manager, in an email.

“The opening moments of a video are the most important for engagement and a spectacular moment, in this case one which focused massive global attention on the WRC in Monte-Carlo, grabs the attention,” Wilford added. “We take great care in choosing how we use such images for both editorial and promotional purposes.”

It’s true that today’s media economy is an attention economy. The WRC needs to build and grow their audience, and grabbing the attention of potential motorsports viewers in online feeds is an important tactic for doing just that.

However, although there is a school of thought that holds that any attention is good attention, there is also a case to be made for asking just what kind of attention one wants to win.

A crash may be magnetic in terms of grabbing eyeballs, but will it really draw the kind of committed, long-term motorsports fans that a sport like rally racing wants, or at least should want?

With exceptions like demolition derbies, motorsports drivers don’t race to crash. They race to win, and a crash is a failure.

Tänak himself seemed to express this sentiment in a statement prior to Rally Sweden.

“We learned a very good lesson, and we know now that each time we have to drive a new section, we really need to focus more than ever before,” he said.

So the question remains: is putting the spotlight on failures like the Ott Tänak crash at Monte Carlo really the right way for the WRC to win new fans for the sport?

Certainly opinions will vary on this front, and your comments are welcome here.

AutoNewsblaster