Monster Starts NASCAR Sponsorship At Daytona Via Logo Signage, Models, Cars, Contest & Content

For a brand aiming to bring in younger audiences and more youth engagement, its decision to hold firm on the distinctly old school motor racing sponsorship tactic of having scantily clad models rep your brand on the ground at race events doesn’t look like very modern marketing.

Even if it might appeal to plenty of teenage boys.

One might either argue that the brand is feeling its way into the new partnership, or that it has been disappointingly slow getting off the grid considering that many associated with the sport hoped that the NASCAR/Monster deal would look to the Daytona 500 as a launch pad to appeal to younger audiences and halt the series’ declining popularity.

Indeed, ahead of the season opening race NASCAR Senior VP & CMO Jill Gregory said that the new title sponsorship deal with Monster Energy was the latest in a ‘concerted push by NASCAR in recent years to increase its appeal’ to a younger audience.

NASCAR’s growth braked hard around 2005: then the recession bit and fan interest cooled.

As TV audiences fell, the race tracks themselves even went as far as tearing out seats to avoid having acres of empty stands.

Did this younger, 18 to 34-year-old demographic cohort switch to other extreme sports like UFC, or even to eSport?

‘We have to make sure we go where they are,’ argues NASCAR chief marketing officer Jill Gregory.

‘We can’t expect them to come to us, watch the broadcast, come to the race. We have to give them a reason to do that. They already have that affinity to the Monster brand, and we need to kind of translate that affinity from the Monster brand to Monster’s involvement with us.’

The two-year (with an option) title partnership of the NASCAR Cup series has been reported to have cost Monster Energy just $20m annually.

A figure far below the previous long-term series sponsor Sprint: which reportedly stumped $750m for its last 10-year deal.

There is clearly some strategic sense to the new title partnership.

After all, it builds on Monster’s Energy’s ongoing race series relationship in the form of its sponsorship of 2004 champion Kurt Busch’s N41 car.

Indeed, Monster is an energy drink that has positioned itself as a party-brand image with a fairly old school focus on parties, girls and high-testosterone sports – particularly motorsports.

But one has to question whether this distinctly old school ‘Animal House’ meets ‘Days Of Thunder’ combination of busty models clad in leather, fan zone smoke and a logo-led approach that sees the drink’s brand plastered on reversing recent waning fan interest.

The glory days and huge audiences enjoyed by previous title sponsors of NASCAR’s top Cup series – Winston Cup, Nextel Cup and Sprint Cup – are long gone.

Can Monster make NASCAR hip again: help it return to blockbuster TV ratings, emerge again from its core Southern male heartland into the national spotlight as it did a decade ago and entice a younger generation to engage with the sport?

It’ll probably need to come up with an activation approach that is a little more innovative and inventive than its Daytona 500 leverage programme.

We do however quite like the Fox Sports spots which debuted ahead of the Daytona 500 and spearheaded the official broadcaster’s promotional campaign which aimed to position the most prestigious NASCAR event as a Super Sunday for car racing fans.

The videos aimed to appeal to both core fans and newbies alike leveraged diverse stars from Homer J Simpson to Gordon Ramsay.

Fox began its promo push with a custom Simpsons spot aired during its Super Bowl coverage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=-rN-bvXBr04

While Brit bad boy chef Ramsay was also signed up by Fox to create six recipes and a lethal pit stop cocktail for racing fans looking to expand their party offering beyond wings and burgers.

Another food-focused element of Fox’s off-air marketing  was a race-day promotion with meal delivery service UberEats.

‘The Daytona 500 is an event that reaches beyond avid fans to more moderate and casual viewers. So the idea is, have a party, invite some friends over, and use the race as an excuse to get together,’ said Robert Gottlieb, exec VP-marketing, Fox Sports Media Group.

According to Nielsen, last year’s Daytona 500 averaged 11.4 million viewers: making it the most-watched, auto race of 2016. (The 2016 Indianapolis 500 averaged just 5.9 million viewers for example).