The silent boost

On a production facility ground somewhere in Austria, an e-racer approaches the start gate, ready for its close-up. The racing car is a beast, but a silent one, powered by the most advanced electric engine. What enfolds in the corporate video is a story of extremes and a metaphor for an entire industry.

Cut and flashback: earlier in 2018, global technology and capital goods group voestalpine announced that it will become the main sponsor of the European races of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship, starting this December with the 2018/2019 season.

This reflects voestalpine's own race for technology leadership. Already, the automotive industry accounts for around a third of the group’s revenue. Constantly focusing on research and development, voestalpine is riding out in front in the growing e-mobility industry with ultra-high-strength body components, central safety devices for batteries, and intelligent product solutions for electric motors. This has earned the group co-operations with the most advanced automotive customers around the world. 

When the negotiations with FIA over the sponsoring package were successfully concluded, sponsorship activation came into focus. The main communication push started with a large press event, followed by an integrated cross-channel campaign.

Video was at the heart of the content preparation as a means to convey the emotion behind both the sports and voestalpine’s role in pushing e-mobility forward.

Building a storyline that forges memorable links

Within voestalpine’s Group Communications, brand communications takes care of sponsoring activities and communicating related actions, amongst other tasks. Consequently, brand communications – under the lead of Michael Sterrer-Ebenführer – was responsible for video production, in cooperation with the teams for media relations (team lead Christiane Ureutz) and for online and social media (team lead Stephanie Bauer).

    Peter Felsbach

    In November, Peter Felsbach took over the role of Group press spokesman for voestalpine AG in November 2011. He is now the Group's central contact for national and international media for communications related to the voestalpine Group. In his previous position as unit leader and senior consultant at a Vienna-based public relations agency, Peter was in charge of the strategic communications of various companies, institutions and public authorities. Before that, he spent several years as head of company communications in eight countries for the business law firm, CHSH. From 2004 to 2006, he shared responsibility for corporate communications and investor relations at the Superfund Investment Group.