Inside Audi F1’s new sponsorship: Exclusive interview with Perk CMO Jada Balster

Audi’s future F1 team has added Perk as its second sponsor, agreeing a multi-year partnership that will see the intelligent travel and spend management platform take a prominent place across the car, team kit and driver helmets once Audi joins the grid.

Perk, formerly TravelPerk, recently rebranded to reflect its evolution from a business travel specialist into an integrated platform that brings together travel, expenses and invoice management. The Audi deal is one of the first major brand moves under the new identity and is designed to accelerate awareness that Perk now operates across the full travel and spend stack.

In an exclusive interview with The Sponsor, Perk CMO Jada Balster explains why F1, why Audi, and why the way a team behaves in early conversations can be just as important as data, reach and media value.

Why F1, why Audi

Perk spent the past nine months rethinking its brand and the role sponsorship could play in its next phase of growth. Multiple sports, teams and markets were considered before F1 emerged as the strongest fit.

“There are so many options when you think about brand partnerships and sponsorships,” Balster says. “We looked at lots of different sports and different types of partnerships and teams, and really came to the conclusion that F1 was just such a great fit for us.”

Formula 1’s link with innovation, performance and operational excellence made it a natural territory for a company focused on eliminating the “shadow work” that slows businesses down. The DACH region is strategically important for Perk, as is the rapidly growing US market. Audi is a strong DACH brand, and F1’s growing footprint in the US is strategically important.

“We met with lots of teams across lots of different sports,” Balster explains. “Audi stood out head and shoulders as ‘there is something special here’. When you think about them in F1, the first factory team in so long, with so much pedigree in other motorsports, there was a lot of early synergy.”

Perk had been working on the brand relaunch for months before talks began, but conversations with Audi moved quickly. Initial contact took place only three to four months before the announcement, yet both sides felt a strong fit early on.

“It is incredible how quickly you can sense whether or not this may or may not work,” Balster says. “From the really early conversations, we were excited. You get a good feeling.”

Building with a future team, not buying a fixed package

A defining feature of the partnership is that Audi F1 is a future team rather than an established one. For Perk, that created an opportunity to shape the programme together rather than slotting into a pre-defined sponsor roster.

“Because they are a future team, the thing I have really appreciated is the idea of building together,” Balster says. “Even in the early conversations, it was, ‘This is what we think would be important in a partnership,’ and it felt like we were co-creating from the start.”

That attitude is not universal across rights holders. Many sponsors will recognise the experience of being handed a largely fixed package with limited flexibility.

“So many teams have so many partners that they know what good looks like and they are quite set in their ways,” Balster notes. “Often it can feel like, ‘This is the package, we can flex it a little bit, but that is it.’ With Audi, it has been really refreshing to see that openness to co-creation.”

The structure of the deal reflects that two-way mindset. Perk will receive prominent branding on the car, team kit and helmets, supported by hospitality rights that allow the company to host key customers at Grands Prix. Audi, in turn, will use Perk’s platform to support the operational side of its F1 programme.

“The fact that they are going to be using our platform to help their team operations was really exciting for us,” Balster says. “The partnership is built around value both ways, which was really important.”

Content will be a central pillar of the activation strategy. Perk and Audi are already exploring co-created storytelling that blends race weekend access with practical demonstrations of how the team uses the platform. Customer events are expected to combine Grand Prix experiences with behind-the-scenes insight into team logistics.

“We are still in early planning stages,” Balster says. “But what I have really appreciated is the openness to co-create and co-build. That feels like a unique opportunity.”

Culture, transparency and internal pride

Externally, the Audi partnership is a brand signal. Internally, it is designed to reinforce Perk’s culture and give its 1,800 plus employees a story they can share with pride.

Perk has already communicated both the rebrand and the sponsorship internally, asking employees to keep the news confidential ahead of the public announcement.

“We have an incredibly transparent culture,” Balster explains. “We announced the change from TravelPerk to Perk at our company kickoff in February, and the whole company kept that a secret until November. With the Audi partnership, it has been similar. The energy internally, the excitement and sense of pride have been one of the nicest things to see.”

Teams across the business are keen to talk to customers about the partnership and to explain how Perk will help Audi F1 deliver on its ambitions. That internal buy-in will be another way the company assesses the wider impact of the deal.

Data, trust and the risk–reward trade off

Like most modern sponsors, Perk is approaching the partnership with a clear measurement mindset. The company has already benchmarked brand awareness, visibility and consideration levels ahead of the rebrand and sponsorship, and will track the effect of the Audi deal on those metrics over time.

“We are looking at brand visibility as a first phase,” Balster says. “We have benchmarked where we are today, and this is how we are going to start accelerating that.”

Perk also expects the partnership to support trust and credibility in commercial conversations, particularly because Audi will use the platform itself. Co-created content will be tracked against existing campaign benchmarks to assess its impact on demand generation.

“There is going to be a lot of testing and learning,” Balster says. “The first year often takes time to figure things out. The second year, you start to find your feet, and just as things come to a close, that is when you really know what you are doing.”

On Audi’s side, the team has shared data from its work with Sauber and from Audi’s wider motorsport history. That gives Perk a sense of expected reach and performance, although there are natural limits before the team appears on the grid.

“There is an element of trust and partnership,” Balster says. “You have to have a lot of that upfront alignment to go into a partnership like this with a team that is not yet on the grid. It is about being honest about what we know now, what we are both agreeing we are building towards, and committing to talk openly about how it is going and where we might need to adjust.”

For Perk, the decision was grounded in data, but not dictated by it. Historic performance, audience fit and market priorities all played a part, yet the relationship dynamic proved equally significant.

“When you think about the risk–reward trade off and what truly building together looks like, that was where we wanted to be,” Balster says. “Yes, there are more questions, but there is also the potential to create something genuinely special.”

What success looks like after three years

The Audi partnership runs for a minimum of three years. By the end of that period, Perk expects to see clear evidence of impact across both brand and business metrics.

On the brand side, success would mean customers seeing a natural connection between Perk and Audi F1.

“If we have our customers saying, ‘This feels so natural, I see the same characteristics across the two brands,’ that feels great,” Balster says. “Innovation, precision engineering, operational excellence, those are characteristics we want people to associate with Perk and that we see in Audi.”

On the business side, Perk aims to talk tangibly about how its platform has helped Audi deliver on its ambitions.

“Audi F1 have big ambitions and have been very open about where they want to be in the next few years,” Balster says. “If we can partner with them and talk to the impact we have had in helping them get there, that is exciting. That is a great story to be able to tell.”

Content performance, demand generation uplift, and the partnership's role in opening new commercial conversations will all feed into that picture.

Lessons for sponsors: look beyond the numbers to the people

Perk’s experience offers a useful reminder for marketing leaders weighing up major sponsorship decisions. Data can and should lead you towards the right sport, team and audience, but it cannot answer every question.

Benchmarking brand health before and after the partnership will help Perk prove the impact of the Audi deal. Audience data, historic performance and market analysis all provided confidence that F1 and Audi were a strong strategic fit.

Yet the decisive factors were more human. How Audi showed up in early meetings, how open the team was to ideas, and how willing they were to build something new together all shaped Perk’s decision.

“You can sense very quickly whether something may or may not work,” Balster reflects. “We wanted a partner that was excited about how our product could help them, and that was open to building something together with two way trust.”

For sponsors, the lesson is simple. Let the data narrow the field, then look closely at the people across the table. How they listen, how they respond, how transparent they are in sharing their ambitions and constraints, and how genuinely they collaborate.

Because once the contract is signed, you are not just buying reach on a car. You are committing to work with that team and those people for years. Perk’s partnership with Audi F1 is a reminder that the best sponsorships are built not only on numbers, but on openness, trust and the willingness to build together.