The Lab Races to COTA for MotoGP

Before Moody seniors venture out into the real world, their final mission is to work with a real-world client to create an integrated communications campaign. Texas Advertising and Public Relations students work together to tackle this project before venturing out to their first full-time gigs in the industry. 

This semester, Circuit of the Americas partnered with The Lab to create a 360 campaign for MotoGP 2023, the premier class of motorcycle road racing. Their main focus was to “Increase ticket sales, specifically with Texans between the ages of 18-28 years old with the underlying focus of bringing more awareness and attendance at COTA events in the future.” 

Since their target audience was 18-28 year olds living in Texas, who better to experience the high intensity Moto sport event at COTA than the UT students of The Lab? For many of the students, this was their first time at the venue. Two leads from the class agency, Hannah Sabbe, vice president, and Anthony Reinehr, account director, shared their perspective. “For me, the energy at the race track was electric. Seeing the event in person really showed me how much goes into every race. Hundreds of cameras and people go into producing a single race,” Anthony said. 

One of Hannah’s highlights of the trip included a tour of the Paddock from MotoGP’s parent company Dorna. “They learned about our class and initiative on [that] Friday afternoon and gave us an opportunity to have a paddock tour. Not only that, but they so graciously rearranged their schedules to take a group of us behind the scenes to see press rooms, conference rooms, directors' pod, sound production pod, the new cameras and technology they're developing, and the Ducati garage just an hour before race time,” said Hannah.  

Anthony went on to say, “Since MotoGP is so unique, they produce a lot of their own technology. For example, they use one camera on the back of each bike that has a GPS sensor to tell it to move when another bike is passing it and the camera will automatically record the over-take. Getting to see all of this technology first hand really gave me a better view of motorsports and production.” Anthony said, “After the tour, we got to watch the race from the grandstand seats and see how everything came together and it gave me a much better appreciation for the work COTA and MotoGP do to produce a good race.”

For UT students this was a trip to remember! “I've learned a lot during the project about motor sports – it really is a completely different world,” Hannah said. The Lab class will continue to work with COTA on future projects. The agency will present their final pitch highlighting their creative executions along with PR and media plans to the client on May 3, 2022, based on their strategy and experience at MotoGP. Learn more about the exciting events happening at Circuit of The Americas, MotoGP, and The Lab.