The most viewed images from Friday at the Indonesian GP were starring Marc Márquez. First for a trademark save at turn 10 of the circuit and then for a taxi service to Pecco Bagnaia, who ran out of gas when the day of training at the Mandalika circuit, located on the island of Lombok, ended. Those who will be teammates in the official Ducati team from 2025, a union that promises fireworks on and off the track, illustrated once again the notable impact of the arrival of the eight-time world champion to the ecosystem of the Italian factory, great dominator of MotoGP in recent years. The effect of ’93 has transformed its host family, the modest Gresini Racing, and the brand based in Borgo Panigale, a district of Bologna, in the media.
“No one else has the media attention that Marc has today. Valentino Rossi had it at the time, and the next one will surely be Pedro Acosta. But Marc is unique and gives us a lot of hype,” explains Cristian Massa, the team’s communications director, in conversation with EL PAÍS. The day before confirming the signing of the Catalan, the Gresini team had 250,000 followers on Instagram. The next day, there were 20,000 more. When he got on the Ducati for the first time, a month and a half later, they went up to 330,000. In less than a year, in short, Italians have doubled their number of followers on social networks.
“Marc is global, and at the media level we have grown tremendously. You can do nice things, whatever you want, but it has really been his arrival that has transformed us overnight,” says the person also responsible for the Catalan’s agenda on the circuits, who has played throughout the year with posters and daring actions, putting a goat in the paddock in Qatar. “What used to be 10 or 15 requests have become 100 or 150, everything has multiplied exponentially. This is the first time I’ve had to schedule interviews for an entire season before the season starts. In the past we barely closed them before traveling to the circuits,” he exemplifies.
Carlo Merlini, head of marketing at Gresini, remembers that Márquez’s impact began to be felt even before the announcement of his arrival to the team. “It is not a surprise with an athlete of his characteristics, but the presence in the media, networks and television since the rumors about Marc’s arrival began increased exorbitantly,” he comments. The Faenza team, led by Nadia Padovani, widow of the late Fausto Gresini, will be embedded in the story of the eight-time champion’s improvement, once again winner and competitive after four years of ordeal due to injuries and the sporting crisis of Honda, his previous brand.
“First of all, it was a relevant addition on a sporting level, but it was also relevant in terms of marketing. Being able to have Marc and Álex on the team has given us a plus when it comes to getting sponsors, and their presence has reinforced our brand value,” adds Merlini. Claudio Domenicali, executive director of Ducati, expressed himself in a similar way when he first assessed the incorporation of Márquez into the universe of the Bologna brand. “Having him is the best marketing campaign possible,” he told this newspaper in January. Months later, his vision was confirmed with data such as the media impact of ‘World Ducati Week’, which experienced a 283% growth in the number of views on social networks, was televised live for the first time in 12 countries and brought together in person to 94,000 fans in Misano, 14,000 more than in the previous edition.
In 2023, a study by Epsilon and Far Consulting concluded that Marc Márquez had five times the digital impact of the rest of the drivers on the grid. In fact, the ten contents with the highest interaction in MotoGP in 2022 were starred by the Spaniard, who was not exactly going through his best sporting moment at that time. A more recent example of his notoriety is the video to make his signing for the official team of the Italian factory official, which reached 7.7 million views, the second best record of the season on Ducati Corse networks.
Although Gigi Dall’Igna, the project’s top sports manager, has always defended that the signing of Márquez has been based on events on the track, no one is unaware that the commercial implications of the agreement outside of it reinforce the image and the ability to sell motorcycles from the Italian brand considerably. “The main ‘marketing’ asset is the results that you can obtain in the future, and our priority has always been to achieve them,” stated the technical guru of the category before deciding on the 93 for the next two seasons. In Bologna they boast of having collected 11 titles, potentially 12, inside the garage, according to those responsible for the brand, the “best pair of riders in the history” of Ducati.
