NASCAR is promoting its 75th anniversary with a season-long, cross-platform ‘Always Forward’ campaign that balances its past legacy and future opportunity and championed the new look marketing during February’s flagship Daytona 500 race.
The anniversary programme began prior to the start of the season when the stock racing series tweaked its logo to recognise that the 2023 season is the sport’s 75th and also rejigged its ‘Past, Present, Future – Always Forward’ tagline.
The new logo look for NASCAR, a series founded in 1948 with its first Cup Series season held in 1949 (won by Red Byron), is a diamond-centric graphic designed to honour its diamond anniversary: the fresh logo comes in NASCAR’s trademarked colour bars on all NASCAR assets.
The logo and brand asset changes were then followed by a hero, 60-second ‘Always Forward’ film which premiered pre-race, then ran on TV during the 19 February Fox broadcast of the Daytona 500 and was then also posted across the rights owner’s digital and social channels.
The anthemic spot, created with 77 Ventures, celebrates the series, stylishly revisits its history – back to when it was originally raced on the actual beach in Daytona and then looks towards the future.
The video opens with a child quietly building a sandcastle on the beach and then sees the sand start to shake and then crumble as a modern stock car (Number 75) races by along the shore. Using smart CGI, the new car then sheds its skin to reveal an original race vehicle (Number 22) and the film proceeds to feature classic race footage as well as contemporary new video with computer graphics blending the two together through a series of legendary races, famous fights, iconic cars and driver celebrations.
The ad, which closes with the copy line ‘Here’s To The First 75, And The Next 75 Too’, will continue to be screened on-site during the pre-race festivities through the season so those committed series supporters attending races in person will see it as well as those fans watching from home.
“With this campaign, we didn’t want to be overly clever. We just wanted to feel the gravitas, and be true to who we are as a brand and a sport, and really lean into the storytelling of our 75-year history,” explained NASCAR CMO Pete Jung. “NASCAR’s origins at Daytona are referenced in the ad’s opening scenes with a No75 stock car reflecting the series anniversary in a history-laden anthem that should appeal to NASCAR’s older fans. The unique origin story and the passion on display should also draw in Gen Z, who are always in search of authentic experiences – but who usually discover NASCAR through different media”
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Also on 19 February, the rights owner rolled out a spot reliving NASCAR’s origin story titled ‘Big Bill France Founds NASCAR At The Streamline Hotel’ which re-enacts the famous Daytona Beach hotel meeting at which Bill France (played by actor David Koechner) chaired the founding of NASCAR.
Other elements of the anniversary campaign rolling out at the start of the season ranged from a web-based gallery titled ‘75 Things To Love About NASCAR’ to a video series featuring today’s drivers’ analysing legendary races of the past.
Plus, a month ahead of the start of the 2023 season, NASCAR entered its own ‘Always Forward” float in the 2023 Rose Parade (in Pasadena, California) and won the award for Most Outstanding Depiction of National Treasures & Traditions. That float mixed legendary drivers like Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon with new series pillars such as the LA Coliseum venue for the Busch Light Clash.
This new anniversary work replaces the previous ‘I Am NASCAR’ brand platform which launched at the start of the 2020 season.
At Activative, our experience is that marketing milestone birthdays are tricky for most sport: particularly when it comes to simultaneously honouring the past (without seeming old fashioned or stuffy) and looking to the future (without casting shadows and minimizing what has come before).
For marketers facing this challenge, it is work exploring how the NFL tackled the issue with its 100th anniversary campaign back in 2019 with a ‘We Ready’ anthem and a ‘100-Year Game’ Super Bowl spot, as well as learning from how the NBA addressed its 75th anniversary in its ‘NBA Lane’ platform.
Despite renewed motor racing competition by resurgent US interest in the global F1 series, NASCAR nevertheless heads into its 2023 season in fairly healthy shape. Its Tv viewing numbers rose last year and its 53 official partners shows an ongoing, healthy interest from brand marketers. Relative newcomer sponsors to the series include the likes of Ally Financial, Cabo Wabo Tequila and Powerball, while Coca-Cola (and its Dasani Water brand) have maintained a relationship with the property since 1998.
Several other big name NASCAR sponsor brands – including Anheuser-Busch (which released a limited edition NASCAR 75th anniversary can) and Goodyear (which rolled out a ‘No Last Lap’ campaign) – are also activating around the anniversary.
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