Martini Relaunch Ahead of the F1 Season
Tuesday 8th March 2016
Manfredo Rossi Di Montelera recently took his four historic race cars to the launch of the new Martini branding and the Willams Martini Racing season with the help and support of Kendle Adams Motorsport. The launch took place at the Martini Distillery in Pessione, Italy, at Casa Martini on March 8th.
Pessione is the original home of Martini, it is the location of their main offices and the principle manufacturing base of their globally recognised Vermouth. The event was the culmination of a massive effort to relaunch the brand with a new marketing strategy and bottle design.
Manfredo Rossi’s father, the late Count Gregorio Rossi took the company into motorsport with the foundation of Martini Racing in 1968. Their first sponsorship in Formula 1 was the Tecno PA123 in 1972 before becoming the title sponsor of Bernie Ecclestone’s Brabham team from 1975 – 1977. Their sponsorship with F1 finished with Lotus in 1980.
Martini Racing returned to Formula 1 in 2006 as an official sponsor, becoming the primary sponsor of the Williams team in 2014. Martini are delighted with the partnership and the return of the Martini stripped livery at the pinnacle of international motor racing.
Having seen the value and the legacy of the Martini Racing brand, it is pleasing to see the iconic livery incorporated into the re-branding of each Martini bottle. As part of the presentation Valtteri Botas and Filipe Massa led their FW38 show car out before being interviewed by Italian F1 presenter Federica Masolin. Joining them Manfredo Rossi retold stories from his childhood, attending races with his father. Manfredo himself an avid historic racer, described how proud he feels to see the Martini Racing brand being prominent again in F1 and Motorsport.
A rather impressive statistic was also thrown out at the launch - almost 2 billion servings of Martini drinks were sold last year which, equates to 4 bottles of Martini being consumed every second world-wide. Using the ‘Terrazza Martini experience’, the globally recognised brand intend to lead the hospitality at each Grand Prix throughout the 2016 season.
The presence of Rossi’s car collection at the launch is testament to Count Gregorio’s legacy and to the revival of the Martini Racing brand. For Kendle Adams Motorsport it was a great pleasure to have been a guest at this event and to witness the passion that those present have for the Martini brand.