Charles Is A PR Genius. And Here's How He's Trying To Slowly Rebrand His Persona To Strenghten His Personal

charles is a PR genius. and here's how he's trying to slowly rebrand his persona to strenghten his personal brand:

recently, especially after the triple header, you could notice charles had a period of time when he distanced himself from ferrari and clearly changed his public statements about his goals. he went from saying he wants to win with ferrari to saying that at his core, he just wants to win. and that he would leave ferrari if he didn't believe the project.

he also changed the way he communicated with fans, through social media. you can notice the change of wording in his post descriptions:

both posts are from the same year, but the wording is now different. he refused to use the ferrari branding and stopped using the typical ferrari-PR wording he was conditioned to use.

fast forward, he started interracting with ferrari by abu dhabi and seemed to be finally happy with the direction the team was taking. however, he still managed to build something from this anti-ferrari period -- the slow rebrand from being "charles, the ferrari driver" to "charles, the f1 driver".

charles is slowly, but surely working to increase the value of his personal brand to possibly gain more negotiating power, and other bonuses that come with having a strong personal brand not tied to any team in particular.

in general, the goal would be to outgrow the team so you are known as an individual athlete, not just someone who drives for the particular team and has their identity tied to the team only.

he also signed with WME for advertisement purposes, he started wearing his personal clothing brand CLACE again after ferrari banned him to do so. he clearly regained more confidence in what he can do as an athlete within the contract (that's usually very limiting from ferrari's pov).

how does he otherwise work on his personal brand? relatability. charles is a gen z child first and foremost, he knows parasocial relationships play a huge role on social media. he works on side personal projects like the LA vlog -- the vlog that had little to do with racing but still showed charles completely SUCK at basketball.

why would you include it, you may ask? it makes him relatable, it makes his personality more interersting. more fun.

his first public post from winter training then was him falling

why did he post that? well, a) he's a silly guy. but more importantly, b) he's not crafting up a perfect PR image, he's aiming for being relatable, showcasing more of his personality. he wants to stand out as an individual in the sea of other f1 drivers who posted more pre-planned content during their winter training.

in the LA vlog he also left in a little dig at carlos. why? because he can. he also used his twitter likes to like controversial things that ferrari wouldn't let him say. he very much knows how to navigate online spaces and how to create more boundaries between his personal brand and the ferrari brand.

additionally, he also now hangs out with people like max publicly even if they don't benefit the ferrari brand. max, in general, isn't liked by the tifosi or ferrari in general. but charles still makes sure to hang out with him on track and outside of it, once again, securing his personal brand and not pushing something that ferrari would prefer.

it's all very interesting to watch, seeing how carefully he's rebuilding his public image and how he communicates on social media with the world.