After a 40 year hiatus, in 2023 Formula 1 returned to Las Vegas. At the heart of the Grand Prix street track is the city’s latest landmark venue, the Sphere. Visible from every corner of the track, and indeed Las Vegas, it was the prime advertising spot for all Grand Prix sponsors and partners.

In the build-up to the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Aston Martin wanted to use the unmissable canvas to celebrate the intensity of the British ultra-luxury performance brand and reveal the AMR23 Formula One car, the DBX707, the world's most powerful luxury SUV, and the DB12, the world's first super tourer.

Our challenge? To do this in a way that stood-out amongst the countless other brands vying for attention on the Sphere and create something to break the ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ tradition, seeing F1 fans and the press sharing the film.

The 90-second sequence on the Sphere begins with a shot of Aston Martin's iconic wings. These then glitch with intensity, switching into a scarab beetle, the inspiration behind the wings logo when it was created in the 1930s. The beetle becomes the catalyst for transformation, crashing into the glass sphere from within, trying to escape. Each time it hits, the glass cracks until, eventually, it ‘shatters’ to reveal the AMR23 Formula One car. This completes a thrilling burnout, filling the Sphere with swirling smoke from its tyres. The smoke clears to reveal the DBX707, and then the DB12, tying the performance and power of the Aston Martin Formula One car with the marque’s production models.

Data shows Aston Martin configurator traffic rises by 13% on F1 race weekends, compared to non-race weekends, a statistic which has been as high as 30% this season when Aston Martin has been on the podium.

Our strategy was to use the opportunity at the Las Vegas Grand Prix to further connect the performance of Aston Martin’s F1 team with their road-going cars, helping to build equity in performance for their production models.

The scale of the Sphere cannot be underestimated. Its 580,000 square foot external screen is the largest in the world, and a perfect place to get noticed during the first Las Vegas Grand Prix in 40 years. The creative’s job was to deliver cut through, delivering a distinctive and memorable use of the Sphere during a packed weekend of racing and advertising.

The 90-second sequence on the Sphere begins with a shot of Aston Martin's iconic wings. The sequence then intensely glitches to switch the wings to the Scarab Beetle, the inspiration from which the wings were born in the 1930s. The Scarab Beetle then begins to try to escape from within the sphere; each time it hits the glass sphere, it cracks, and after a number of attempts the 366 feet (112 m) tall Sphere dramatically 'shatters' to reveal the AMR23 Formula One car, which completes a thrilling burnout, filling the surface of the Sphere with a layer of swirling smoke from its tyres. The smoke momentarily clears to reveal the DBX707, the smoke refills the screen and then momentarily clears once again - this time to reveal the DB12.

The Aston Martin Sphere animation sequence was a huge success over the three day lead up to the Las Vegas Grand Prix, receiving numerous positive mentions across various international press organisations. Aston Martin’s Sphere presence gained huge social engagement seeing record levels of activity, for example across the three days:

On Instagram:

Impressions increased by +49% to 4.8M

Engagements up by +34% to 270K

Video views up by 534% to 2.7M

Shares rose by +424%

Facebook, X, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn:

Impressions increased by +54% to 3.3M

Across all channels:

Positivity made up the majority of the sentiment, at 91%