Brian C. Mackey
President
Mackey Marketing Group, Inc.
Few in the motorsport marketing industry have more experience, marketing expertise and insight than MMG’s Brian Mackey. For fifty of his sixty-seven years, motor racing has been a major part of his life. His first exposure was as a 16-year old while living in England attending the British Grand Prix as a birthday gift from his father. It’s been a life filled with the sounds of racing ever since.
Meanwhile Mackey’s professional career developed with more marketing orientation. He was an Account Executive in television sales that led directly to serving as Director of Marketing for two fast-growing airlines during the early days of industry deregulation. He was the founding chairman of an airline association while his racing interests were maintained as an amateur racer competing through the Jim Russell School system as well as racing his own Formula Ford, a vintage but loveable, Lotus 51, all the while extending his passion as an avid race fan. But all that began to change in 1984 as his professional career and personal interests began to merge. Mackey joined a a motorsport television program in its advertising sales division which led to his forming his own business in 1986.
Mackey’s knowledge and involvement in motorsport marketing issues are extensive. He was never a professional driver who may have elected to extend or maintain a driving career by trying his hand at marketing. Mackey’s expertise in marketing didn’t commence after racing, his was established from the beginning. He is a marketer who has studied and designed the marketing facets of the sport for the past thirty years. It’s is very difficult to find anyone more experienced, more knowledgeable of marketing issues, more involved with creating marketing programs utilizing motorsports as the central theme than Brian Mackey. His is a unique, lifetime combination of marketing expertise and a personal passion for motor racing.
The picture above illustrates the very beginning point. Brian Mackey attended the 1968 British Grand Prix as a 16 year old. It was a pivotal day as it was the start of a passion that continues to this day. Brian snapped this photo of the starting grid, not realizing the impact that day would have on the rest of his life.
