Wilkinson Sword's 'Partners in Smooth' campaign shows how sponsors must fight to be heard in F1's crowded arena

Formula 1's transformation under Liberty Media has made it an almost irresistible proposition for consumer brands. The sport's demographic shift — younger, more diverse, more culturally engaged — has triggered a gold rush of sponsorship activity. But that very influx has created a new problem: how do you make your voice heard when everyone is shouting at once?

'Partners in Smooth': a campaign built on character

The personal care brand has just launched a fan campaign platform called 'Partners in Smooth', centring on a hero film in which a character known as the Blade Master is appointed as the Williams team's first-ever Director of Smooth. The campaign spans social and digital advertising, creator content, fan experiences, and retail activations — and draws on the full Williams cast: Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon, reserve driver Luke Browning, and team boss James Vowles.

Jonathan Norman, senior marketing director at Wilkinson Sword's parent company Edgewell Personal Care, is candid about what prompted the approach. "It provides a bit more personality rather than just your standard sponsorship," he said. "As the growth of the sport has brought more partners in than ever before, it feels quite important for us that we actually cut through that. We wanted to do something different — become more meaningful to the fans, and have not just visibility for our brand as we move forward."

An old brand chasing a young audience

Wilkinson Sword is one of the oldest companies to have entered F1 sponsorship, having originally been founded as a firearms manufacturer in 1772 before transitioning through sword production and ultimately into shaving following the invention of the safety razor in 1903. Reinvention is in its DNA.

Its entry into F1 came when the brand identified that the sport's rapidly evolving fanbase was aligning with its own target audience. The Williams partnership follows Wilkinson Sword Intuition — its female shaving brand — sponsoring the Women's Rugby World Cup in 2025, signalling a broader push into sport as a growth vehicle.

But Norman is clear that heritage and visibility alone are not enough. "It's no good coming in and sheltering our name within what is quite a competitive space. We have had to work for it. We had to offer the value, but we had to do it in an authentic way."

With Williams also navigating significant operational challenges heading into the Monaco weekend, the timing of a bold off-track campaign that puts Vowles and the drivers front and centre carries its own strategic weight for the team's commercial identity.

F1 as an attention economy

What makes F1 particularly compelling for brands like Wilkinson Sword is not simply its viewership numbers — it is the quality and profile of those viewers. The under-40 demographic is the primary target.

"That under-40 age group is of particular interest," said Norman. "They are quite involved in terms of their personal care and their routine. They look for quality and want products and brands that are very effective, and that offer them precision and performance. When you look at what activity represents that, F1 absolutely ticks all of those boxes."

The explosion in female engagement is also firmly on Wilkinson Sword's radar. "That growth of the younger female fan certainly becomes quite interesting for us as we go forward across our portfolio," Norman added — a dynamic explored in depth in our series on the women driving Formula 1 from behind the scenes.

This attention-economy logic was also central to Alpine's landmark Gucci title sponsorship — further evidence that F1 is now competing not just with other sports, but with entertainment and culture at large.

Norman frames the battlefield in precisely those terms: "Ultimately, we're competing for people's attention, and that's exactly what F1 is doing — irrespective of whether it's another sport or something else. What F1 has done incredibly well over recent years is transcend sport, so it's become more of a cultural movement, which encompasses art, style, music, and whatever else. That has really fuelled its growth."

For sponsors willing to do the work — and willing to give the Blade Master a job title — it is a battlefield full of opportunity.