Remember when race cars were still called "specials" and always looked the same, every race, every season, according to what colors, personal obsessions and/or hand lettering styles the team owner, long time sponsor or the primary check writer's wife (or girlfriend) liked? They didn't know it at the time but those early team owners and sponsors were participating in the development of what the marketing folks now call 'Branding' -- something entirely different from the kind of branding that Rowdy Yates, Gordon Johncock and A.J. Foyt used to do to cows. A company's brand is its personality, image and reputation; it?s the consumer's perception of the company and its values. Using motorsports to promote a company brand has always been an efficient, reasonably cost-effective, but not inexpensive means of advertising. But as noted in The Right Stuff, "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." The current economy, still wheezing along as it tries to avoid hospice, has had a major impact on motorsports sponsorships and race teams have had to make equally major adjustments. Full season and especially multi-season sponsorships, which benefit and build the team and sponsor brands best, are becoming extinct. So to keep doing what they do, race teams are slicing up their primary sponsorship packages to allow more companies to benefit from NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide and IZOD IndyCar Series brand building. That's why Cousin Carl, Juan Pablo, Kyle Busch and so many other NASCAR superstars now find themselves racing two, three, four or more different looking cars each season. Why Helio, Dario, Scott Dixon, etc. in IndyCar run different paint schemes at different races. Everyone from Roush Fenway, Andretti Autosports and Richard Childress to Team Penske, Hendrick Motorsports and Chip Ganassi have had to adopt the new break-it-up-and-sell-it-in-pieces model in order to keep their doors open and all their teams racing. Unfortunately the all-powerful branding value of primary sponsorship in racing, as a whole, is no longer the sum of its parts because partial race sponsorships mean diminished reach and frequency per sponsor. Partial sponsorships surrender and waste the opportunities for long term, loyalty over time relationships that come from default consumer connections. Exclusivity and its rewards are going away. The almost subconscious association between the consumer and a driver, team, primary sponsor and series, where a special paint scheme is part of the sponsor's branding strategy, not some other company's, is fading.
For instance: Matt Kenseth has been driving a No. 17 Ford for 11 years. From his rookie year through 2009, DeWalt Power Tools served as his team's primary sponsor and every partner's branding efforts benefitted. A successful, popular driver was associated with a strong team and a popular consumer product manufacturer and all three were presented to the consumer, week after week, with the same face, the same voice, the same 'look and feel' on the biggest stage in American racing.
DeWalt left after 2009 and the No. 17 car became the Crown Royal Ford. But just last week we found out that Crown Royal, Matt's "primary primary" sponsor is leaving at the end of this season. And this past Saturday night, when Kenseth pushed teammate David Ragan's No. 6 UPS Ford to the win at Daytona, the No. 17 was black instead of Royal Crown purple; the rear quarter panel displaying the name and logo of a company called Affliction Clothing -- even thought you won't find that name and logo on Roush Fenway's sponsor page at www.roushfenway.com yet. The brand partnership that was so strong for so many years has splintered. So as a result of rotating sponsorships and car colors and well-intentioned consumer promotions, primary motorsports sponsorship as a branding investment strategy is slowly being devalued. The No. 1 racing-related brand in history remains STP thanks mainly to its decades-long support of Richard Petty and the No. 43 car, and earlier support of the Novi, then turbine -powered, the Mario Andretti -driven Indy 500 race cars. Year after year, with relentless repetition, STP's hope-in-a-bottle message was exposed to a larger and larger audience because the marketing campaign didn't just help STP; it also helped NASCAR, Richard Petty, Andy Granatelli and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was the epitome of that old, 'a rising tide lift all boats' deal. And now, like the price of gas, motorsports sponsorship is in a recession -created slump that no one can really do anything about. Part-time sponsors are certainly better than no sponsors but there will be consequences to the realistic prognosis that season-long primary sponsorships will soon be the exception instead of the rule. For we-the-non-invested, part-time sponsorships will be fine and we'll hardly notice any difference between Jimmy Johnson in the always Lowe's -liveried car and Jeff Gordon and his No. 24 car that switches between DuPont, Pepsi and AARP paint schemes. We'll follow our favorite teams and drivers like always, barely aware of the rotating wraps. We won't really care that sometimes Carl Edwards's car and driving suit is green or red for Scott's or Ortho; or black, blue and green for Aflac or yellow and green for Subway or blue and white for Fastenal. But the corporate bean counters, media researchers and impressions junkies will care. Because slicing up a season long primary race car sponsorship makes it less of a branding bargain, not more. When the economy recovers, today's NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA, etc. teams may find that the selling prices of real, effective, build-your-brand, activate-like-crazy primary race car sponsorships won't come close to where they were before the recession. Too many get-what-you-sell-for partial sponsorships will have diluted the primary sponsorship ?brand?, changing the funding model forever. Let hope that works out for everyone.
Remember when race cars were still called "specials" and always looked the same, every race, every season, according to what colors, personal obsessions and/or hand lettering styles the team owner, long time sponsor or the primary check writer's wife (or girlfriend) liked? They didn't know it at the time but those early team owners and sponsors were participating in the development of what the marketing folks now call 'Branding' -- something entirely different from the kind of branding that Rowdy Yates, Gordon Johncock and A.J. Foyt used to do to cows. A company's brand is its personality, image and reputation; it?s the consumer's perception of the company and its values. Using motorsports to promote a company brand has always been an efficient, reasonably cost-effective, but not inexpensive means of advertising. But as noted in The Right Stuff, "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." The current economy, still wheezing along as it tries to avoid hospice, has had a major impact on motorsports sponsorships and race teams have had to make equally major adjustments. Full season and especially multi-season sponsorships, which benefit and build the team and sponsor brands best, are becoming extinct. So to keep doing what they do, race teams are slicing up their primary sponsorship packages to allow more companies to benefit from NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide and IZOD IndyCar Series brand building. That's why Cousin Carl, Juan Pablo, Kyle Busch and so many other NASCAR superstars now find themselves racing two, three, four or more different looking cars each season. Why Helio, Dario, Scott Dixon, etc. in IndyCar run different paint schemes at different races. Everyone from Roush Fenway, Andretti Autosports and Richard Childress to Team Penske, Hendrick Motorsports and Chip Ganassi have had to adopt the new break-it-up-and-sell-it-in-pieces model in order to keep their doors open and all their teams racing. Unfortunately the all-powerful branding value of primary sponsorship in racing, as a whole, is no longer the sum of its parts because partial race sponsorships mean diminished reach and frequency per sponsor. Partial sponsorships surrender and waste the opportunities for long term, loyalty over time relationships that come from default consumer connections. Exclusivity and its rewards are going away. The almost subconscious association between the consumer and a driver, team, primary sponsor and series, where a special paint scheme is part of the sponsor's branding strategy, not some other company's, is fading. For instance: Matt Kenseth has been driving a No. 17 Ford for 11 years. From his rookie year through 2009, DeWalt Power Tools served as his team's primary sponsor and every partner's branding efforts benefitted. A successful, popular driver was associated with a strong team and a popular consumer product manufacturer and all three were presented to the consumer, week after week, with the same face, the same voice, the same 'look and feel' on the biggest stage in American racing. DeWalt left after 2009 and the No. 17 car became the Crown Royal Ford. But just last week we found out that Crown Royal, Matt's "primary primary" sponsor is leaving at the end of this season. And this past Saturday night, when Kenseth pushed teammate David Ragan's No. 6 UPS Ford to the win at Daytona, the No. 17 was black instead of Royal Crown purple; the rear quarter panel displaying the name and logo of a company called Affliction Clothing -- even thought you won't find that name and logo on Roush Fenway's sponsor page at www.roushfenway.com yet. The brand partnership that was so strong for so many years has splintered. So as a result of rotating sponsorships and car colors and well-intentioned consumer promotions, primary motorsports sponsorship as a branding investment strategy is slowly being devalued. The No. 1 racing-related brand in history remains STP thanks mainly to its decades-long support of Richard Petty and the No. 43 car, and earlier support of the Novi, then turbine -powered, the Mario Andretti -driven Indy 500 race cars. Year after year, with relentless repetition, STP's hope-in-a-bottle message was exposed to a larger and larger audience because the marketing campaign didn't just help STP; it also helped NASCAR, Richard Petty, Andy Granatelli and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was the epitome of that old, 'a rising tide lift all boats' deal. And now, like the price of gas, motorsports sponsorship is in a recession -created slump that no one can really do anything about. Part-time sponsors are certainly better than no sponsors but there will be consequences to the realistic prognosis that season-long primary sponsorships will soon be the exception instead of the rule. For we-the-non-invested, part-time sponsorships will be fine and we'll hardly notice any difference between Jimmy Johnson in the always Lowe's -liveried car and Jeff Gordon and his No. 24 car that switches between DuPont, Pepsi and AARP paint schemes. We'll follow our favorite teams and drivers like always, barely aware of the rotating wraps. We won't really care that sometimes Carl Edwards's car and driving suit is green or red for Scott's or Ortho; or black, blue and green for Aflac or yellow and green for Subway or blue and white for Fastenal. But the corporate bean counters, media researchers and impressions junkies will care. Because slicing up a season long primary race car sponsorship makes it less of a branding bargain, not more. When the economy recovers, today's NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA, etc. teams may find that the selling prices of real, effective, build-your-brand, activate-like-crazy primary race car sponsorships won't come close to where they were before the recession. Too many get-what-you-sell-for partial sponsorships will have diluted the primary sponsorship ?brand?, changing the funding model forever. Let hope that works out for everyone.
Remember when race cars were still called "specials" and always looked the same, every race, every season, according to what colors, personal obsessions and/or hand lettering styles the team owner, long time sponsor or the primary check writer's wife (or girlfriend) liked? They didn't know it at the time but those early team owners and sponsors were participating in the development of what the marketing folks now call 'Branding' -- something entirely different from the kind of branding that Rowdy Yates, Gordon Johncock and A.J. Foyt used to do to cows. A company's brand is its personality, image and reputation; it?s the consumer's perception of the company and its values. Using motorsports to promote a company brand has always been an efficient, reasonably cost-effective, but not inexpensive means of advertising. But as noted in The Right Stuff, "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." The current economy, still wheezing along as it tries to avoid hospice, has had a major impact on motorsports sponsorships and race teams have had to make equally major adjustments. Full season and especially multi-season sponsorships, which benefit and build the team and sponsor brands best, are becoming extinct. So to keep doing what they do, race teams are slicing up their primary sponsorship packages to allow more companies to benefit from NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide and IZOD IndyCar Series brand building. That's why Cousin Carl, Juan Pablo, Kyle Busch and so many other NASCAR superstars now find themselves racing two, three, four or more different looking cars each season. Why Helio, Dario, Scott Dixon, etc. in IndyCar run different paint schemes at different races. Everyone from Roush Fenway, Andretti Autosports and Richard Childress to Team Penske, Hendrick Motorsports and Chip Ganassi have had to adopt the new break-it-up-and-sell-it-in-pieces model in order to keep their doors open and all their teams racing. Unfortunately the all-powerful branding value of primary sponsorship in racing, as a whole, is no longer the sum of its parts because partial race sponsorships mean diminished reach and frequency per sponsor. Partial sponsorships surrender and waste the opportunities for long term, loyalty over time relationships that come from default consumer connections. Exclusivity and its rewards are going away. The almost subconscious association between the consumer and a driver, team, primary sponsor and series, where a special paint scheme is part of the sponsor's branding strategy, not some other company's, is fading. For instance: Matt Kenseth has been driving a No. 17 Ford for 11 years. From his rookie year through 2009, DeWalt Power Tools served as his team's primary sponsor and every partner's branding efforts benefitted. A successful, popular driver was associated with a strong team and a popular consumer product manufacturer and all three were presented to the consumer, week after week, with the same face, the same voice, the same 'look and feel' on the biggest stage in American racing. DeWalt left after 2009 and the No. 17 car became the Crown Royal Ford. But just last week we found out that Crown Royal, Matt's "primary primary" sponsor is leaving at the end of this season. And this past Saturday night, when Kenseth pushed teammate David Ragan's No. 6 UPS Ford to the win at Daytona, the No. 17 was black instead of Royal Crown purple; the rear quarter panel displaying the name and logo of a company called Affliction Clothing -- even thought you won't find that name and logo on Roush Fenway's sponsor page at www.roushfenway.com yet. The brand partnership that was so strong for so many years has splintered. So as a result of rotating sponsorships and car colors and well-intentioned consumer promotions, primary motorsports sponsorship as a branding investment strategy is slowly being devalued. The No. 1 racing-related brand in history remains STP thanks mainly to its decades-long support of Richard Petty and the No. 43 car, and earlier support of the Novi, then turbine -powered, the Mario Andretti -driven Indy 500 race cars. Year after year, with relentless repetition, STP's hope-in-a-bottle message was exposed to a larger and larger audience because the marketing campaign didn't just help STP; it also helped NASCAR, Richard Petty, Andy Granatelli and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was the epitome of that old, 'a rising tide lift all boats' deal. And now, like the price of gas, motorsports sponsorship is in a recession -created slump that no one can really do anything about. Part-time sponsors are certainly better than no sponsors but there will be consequences to the realistic prognosis that season-long primary sponsorships will soon be the exception instead of the rule. For we-the-non-invested, part-time sponsorships will be fine and we'll hardly notice any difference between Jimmy Johnson in the always Lowe's -liveried car and Jeff Gordon and his No. 24 car that switches between DuPont, Pepsi and AARP paint schemes. We'll follow our favorite teams and drivers like always, barely aware of the rotating wraps. We won't really care that sometimes Carl Edwards's car and driving suit is green or red for Scott's or Ortho; or black, blue and green for Aflac or yellow and green for Subway or blue and white for Fastenal. But the corporate bean counters, media researchers and impressions junkies will care. Because slicing up a season long primary race car sponsorship makes it less of a branding bargain, not more. When the economy recovers, today's NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA, etc. teams may find that the selling prices of real, effective, build-your-brand, activate-like-crazy primary race car sponsorships won't come close to where they were before the recession. Too many get-what-you-sell-for partial sponsorships will have diluted the primary sponsorship ?brand?, changing the funding model forever. Let hope that works out for everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment