From Ibiza to Flemington: how Fisher became racing’s viral win

Perhaps the greatest marketing masterstroke of the spring was actually an international DJ on the last day of the Cup carnival.

We’re talking about Fisher – DJ, surfer, social media star, and father.

He is a resident DJ in Ibiza – a global music superstar who flies around the world on private jets playing to packed crowds everywhere from Vegas to the hottest European clubs.

On Saturday he was at Flemington in 14 degree weather as the rain pissed down. And he lit the joint up.

I’d confidently say that many, many in racing would have never heard of him before Saturday and that’s OK. In fact, that’s probably a good thing.

Now he wouldn’t have come cheap for the VRC – he flew private from the Gold Coast to Melbourne with a small entourage.

But if there were any fears he would follow in the footsteps of other music acts who are never seen before their performance, they were quickly lost.

The VRC smartly called race 3 the Fisher Stakes. He loved it, going by the great videos he and the club posted [he also reckons the race is here to stay – and if Amanda Elliott can have a race, surely he can too].

Here is the kicker – Fisher had his own camera crew with him – and they cut a video of his race day.

It’s terrific content.

The video went straight out to his 2.4 million followers. In the nearly three hours after his video was uploaded, it was watched more than 300,000 times. Epic stuff.

It’s the best promotion the sport could ask for.

 

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It featured him punting, meeting Jamie Melham [and in another video even admitting he nearly shed a tear watching her win the Melbourne Cup], yelling his horse home, a visit to the Birdcage, enjoying a few beers and laughing with punters.

He even admits he was surprised by the size of the crowd who turned up to watch him perform once the races were done [he was expecting 50 people apparently?!].

Despite the horrific weather, party goers flocked into Flemington from the Nursery as he started. The VRC even smartly opened up the track to let people party. The joint was packed and it went off.

The other marketing success story of the carnival, Bloggsy, posted his own video – dancing with the likes of Fisher fan and jockey Mark Zahra, retired great Damien Oliver, RV CEO Aaron Morrison [in his poncho] and VRC CEO Kylie Rogers plus others who had just finished competing.

His video promotes racing to the general public like few people or content pieces can and whatever the VRC spent [and we assume it was significant] it was worth every cent.