DriveTribe
Type of site
Social Media Platform
HeadquartersLondon, UK
Founder(s)
URLdrivetribe.com
CommercialYes
Users140m monthly active (2021)
Launched28 November 2016 (2016-11-28)
Current statusPlatform shifted to social media

DriveTribe is a social networking platform founded as a hub for automotive content and digital socialising. Founded by presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond alongside entrepreneur Ernesto Schmitt, the platform was characterised by its use of themed Tribes to build groups.

Launching to the public in late 2016, DriveTribe allowed users to find groups with unique characteristics and personalities that best reflected their motoring interests, whilst being able to create their own tribes. The platform was backed pre-launch by $5.5m from Breyer Capital via Jim Breyer, one of the first Facebook investors, and Atomico, followed by $6.5m from 21st Century Fox.

With a focus on motoring, the platform scaled rapidly, and by 2018, DriveTribe had 10 million daily active users and 140 million monthly users across its platforms. In 2021, the platform announced it was shifting to other social media platforms. DriveTribe has over 2.2 million subscribers on their YouTube as of August 2022.

History

From left to right: Richard Hammond, James May and Jeremy Clarkson in 2008

DriveTribe was announced in April 2016, having been in stealth mode since December 2015, founded by the Top Gear trio; Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, alongside Ernesto Schmitt, a serial entrepreneur who has recently exited Beamly.[1][2][3][4] Andy Wilman, the Top Gear producer was also noted as a founder.[5][6] The platform was launched as the home for motoring, similar to what ‘Twitch (is) for video games or TripAdvisor for travel’.[3] Variety noted that despite motoring being a ‘a bigger interest category than News & Current Affairs (410 million), Football (380 million) or Pets, Dating and Toys combined’, there was no single, massive online destination for motoring enthusiasts, until DriveTribe.[2] The idea was that once successful, the Tribe model could be ‘extended [..] into other verticals, which could include fashion, music or food’.[7][6][3]

The platform planned to ‘build an engine to send content that will specifically target the disparate communities that make up car fans — from petrolheads to classic car aficionados’, and users would be able to join ‘tribes’ that reflected their interests.[6][4]

"Gamers have got Twitch, travellers have got TripAdvisor and fashion fans have got, oh, something or other too. But people who are into cars have got nowhere. There’s no grand-scale online motoring community where people can meet and share video, comments, information and opinion. DriveTribe will change that."

Richard Hammond

Launch

DriveTribe’s launch to much fanfare on November 28 was pre-empted by a teaser video from Clarkson, Hammond and May.[8] Made up of thousands of tribes, including racing driver Oliver James Webb, motoring journalist Jethro Bovingdon, Finnish blogger Sara Nase, Mark Webber, Damon Hill and many others, the platform initially limited who was able to start a tribe.[1][9][10] Clarkson called the platform “DriveTribe is YouPorn for Cars.”.[11][12] By January 2017, there were 20,000 contributors.[13] A quarter million content pieces were posted on DriveTribe in its first six weeks, with ‘with 2 million content views per day in January, up from 1 million in December, the platform’s first month of activity’.[13] The company scaled to over 140m monthly platform users by 2021.[14]

Tribes

DriveTribe hinged on the concept that users would sign up to the “tribe”, each with its own "unique characteristics and personality,", that best reflects their motoring interests, whilst being able to create their own.[6][5] Each of the three presenters had their own tribe, with DriveTribe envisioning tribes focusing on different niches in the automotive world, all under the DriveTribe hub.[3][15][16] Clarkson’s “tribe” is called “Alfa Male.” Hammond’s is “Hammond’s Fob Jockeys.” May’s is “James May’s Carbolics.”.[17][1]

"We are taking a sector via a channel and augmenting it with a community around the concept of a tribe. A tribe is a group of people, surrounding a leader, rallying around a common cause. That leads to a huge level of engagement,"

Ernesto Schmitt

Content was envisioned to be created by the three presenters, an editorial staff of between 15 and 30 full-time members, as well as attracting "stars, bloggers, writers, and videographers" to create their own content, ‘delivered across multiple platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat), while automatically tailoring headlines, images, and layout to individual consumers’.[3]

“This is pure digital inclusivity. Some of the world’s most endangered tribes — Volvo enthusiasts, for example — will now have a voice as loud as everyone else’s.”

James May

Funding

Initial funding for DriveTribe came from Clarkson, Hammond and May, before DriveTribe raised $5.5m from Breyer Capital via Jim Breyer, one of the first Facebook investors, and Atomico, followed by $6.5m from 21st Century Fox three weeks later and pre-launch, with Fox noting to TechCrunch “We saw the DriveTribe platform and we were blown away by its ingenuity,”.[5][18][19][16][1][20][21]

Leadership

The company’s founders were directors on ‘W Chump and Sons T Shirts & Mugs Limited’ on companies house. Leadership primarily consisted of Schmitt; previously founded Beamly, PeopleSound and had been executive chair of Invision, who brought on Jonathan Morris as CTO, who was previously CTO of the Financial Times.[6] Schmitt left DriveTribe in mid 2017.

Commercialisation

Pre launch, Ernesto Schmitt, as CEO, noted that automotive as the ‘biggest advertising category in the world — with $45 billion media spend projected for 2016’ provided DriveTribe large opportunity for commercialisation through native advertising and social commerce.[6]

In April 2018, DriveTribe announced its first commercial partnership, with German car manufacturer Audi.[22] In June 2018, DriveTribe launched a joint partnership with JOE Media and Renault, a six-figure deal focusing on the launch of the Megane RS. Renault UK marketing director, Adam Wood, said the partnership would look to "engage a broader lifestyle market through original content production, influencer led activation and editorial support."[23]

In November 2018, the DriveTribe CEO, Jonathan Morris, described the four elements of the company's commercial model, which include content creation, distribution, and data insights,[24] the latter of which is made possible because DriveTribe's tech stack is built on Apache Flink.[25]

Shift to social media

On 10 January 2022, DriveTribe announced they would be shutting down at the end of the month, citing reductions in revenue due to lower marketing budgets across the automotive industry and a global shortage of computer chips caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.[26] Co-Founder Richard Hammond stated that they would be keeping the DriveTribe community alive through their established social media and YouTube channel. Jeremy Clarkson and James May would also be making appearances from time to time.[27]

See also

See: Jeremy Clarkson on DriveTribe, his latest business venture

See: Car celebrity Richard Hammond talks about launching the DriveTribe startup (TC3)

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Kanter, Jake. "Why Amazon is 'absolutely fine' about Jeremy Clarkson's Fox-backed Drive Tribe". Business Insider. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  2. 1 2 Perkins, Chris (26 April 2016). "Clarkson, Hammond, and May Are Creating a New Website For Car Enthusiasts". Road & Track. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Golson, Jordan (25 April 2016). "Former Top Gear trio hope to create an online universe for car fans". The Verge. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  4. 1 2 Jackson, Jasper (26 April 2016). "Ex-Top Gear trio Clarkson, Hammond and May to launch DriveTribe website". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 Chester, Tim (26 April 2016). "Former Top Gear presenters plotting new community for motoring fans". Mashable. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Butcher, Mike (25 April 2016). "Clarkson, Hammond and May to launch DriveTribe motoring content platform". TechCrunch. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  7. ↑ Barraclough, Leo (25 April 2016). "Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May to Launch Digital Media Platform DriveTribe (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  8. ↑ "What Is DriveTribe And How Do You Do It? An Explainer". Jalopnik. 22 November 2016. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  9. ↑ Gitlin, Jonathan M. (28 November 2016). "DriveTribe goes live and The Grand Tour goes stale". Ars Technica. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  10. ↑ Kanter, Jake. "Jeremy Clarkson tells us why he'd love to have Donald Trump on 'The Grand Tour'". Business Insider. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  11. ↑ Campbell, Bryan (9 January 2017). "Gear Patrol Is Now on DriveTribe. Join Us". Gear Patrol. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  12. ↑ Hurley, James. "Grand Tour stars at wheel of new website adventure". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  13. 1 2 "Reimagining community: The three-part strategy fuelling Drivetribe | Media news". www.journalism.co.uk. 27 January 2017. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  14. ↑ "How DriveTribe has found gold dust in engagement". FIPP. 6 November 2018. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
  15. ↑ "Former 'Top Gear' hosts plan DriveTribe motoring community". Engadget. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  16. 1 2 Butcher, Mike (6 September 2016). "Motoring community DriveTribe secures $6.5M from 21st Century Fox". TechCrunch. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  17. ↑ "'Top Gear' Hosts' DriveTribe Nabs $6.5 Million Investment From 21st Century Fox". 6 September 2016. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  18. ↑ Martin, Scott. "DriveTribe Revs Up $5.5M for Auto Enthusiast Media". WSJ. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  19. ↑ "Fox backs Jeremy Clarkson's Drivetribe". Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  20. ↑ Kanter, Jake. "Jeremy Clarkson and his 'Grand Tour' co-stars tell us about their plans to build a giant new social network". Business Insider. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  21. ↑ "Richard Hammond Talks About Growing DriveTribe, Future Goals For Site". NESN.com. 13 February 2017. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  22. ↑ "DriveTribe seals first major partner in Audi tasked with telling electric vehicle stories". The Drum. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  23. ↑ "DriveTribe broadens ad offering after inking deal with Renault". The Drum. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  24. ↑ Niekerk, Piet van. "How DriveTribe has found gold dust in engagement". fipp.com. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  25. ↑ "Drivetribe's Modern Take On CQRS With Apache Flink® - data Artisans". data Artisans. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  26. ↑ "Dear DriveTribe Community". 26 January 2022. Archived from the original on 26 January 2022. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  27. ↑ Bruce, Chris (10 January 2022). "DriveTribe Shutting Down Permanently After 5 Years". Motor1. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
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