The initially oneyear deal offers Philips marketing opportunities specifically designed to boost sales and position for Philips Shavers as the leading brand in male shavers to the worldwide audience for Formula One, estimated at 162 million per Grand Prix.

Under the partnership deal, Philips Shavers will be able to exercise various rights as an official sponsor at over 19 WilliamsF1 Grand Prix races. Philips Shavers will also gain rights to other Williams F1 resources including the use of the names “Official Supplier of the WilliamsF1 Team” and “Male Shaving Partner of the WilliamsF1 Team”.

Even for notsoavid Formula One fans, the WiliamsF1 Team simply holds an astounding success record of winning 16 World Championships titles in just 26 years, including nine Constructors’ Championships, seven Driver Championships and 113 victories.

Formally announcing the deal in the AsiaPacific region in Kuala Lumpur last Friday, Lenze Boonstra, director of marketing communications APAC said the deal matched both Philips own marketing strategy to always stay on top and the core value of WilliamsF1’s team principal that “if something could be better, it should be”.

He said the initial oneyear deal could be further extended after an appraisal to evaluate the benefits of the partnership, both for WilliamsF1 and for Philips. The scope of the contract means that the flagship products would be endorsed by WilliamsF1 personnel including its drivers Nico Rossberg, Mark Webber, Alex Wurz and Narain Karthikeyan.

Formula1 fans or not, users of Philips Shavers and general web surfers can compete in virtual F1 Grand Prix through online competitions among themselves or occasionally with WilliamsF1 drivers, or they can download exciting copyrightprotected images of WilliamsF1 race cars and drivers from the website www.philips.com/williamsf1.

Thasong Asvasena

The Nation

Kuala Lumpur