NASCAR’s Monster Mash
The new sponsor of NASCAR’s premier series is all about energy and at the halfway point in the inaugural season of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, the energy level has definitely spiked.
The question is: Has it spiked enough with the fans?
For NASCAR, this season marked a significant change in direction. After 13 years of sponsorship split between Nextel and Sprint, the signing of Monster Energy to a two-year deal was somewhat of a significant change in itself. The previous agreements were for far longer terms, with far more money on the table (an estimated $70 million per season, on average), but the digital marketplace is fiercely competitive and companies regularly undercut one another and engage in price wars.
When Sprint opted out of its deal a few years early, it left NASCAR seeking a partner that could provide solutions on a panoramic scale, such as an aging audience increasingly mystified by a flurry of technical and procedural tweaks, lagging TV and attendance numbers and a serious difficulty in attracting new fans.
Monster Energy, which enjoys monstrous attention and market share in the desirable 18-34 demographic, has splashed into action sports in a big way and into motorsports with Formula One and its Monster Energy Supercross series for motorcycles, using a prodigious digital outreach to drive sales and interest.
A marriage made in heaven, or at least a solid match with benefits to each side, right?
It might be too early to tell.
Its primary rival, Red Bull, still swings a mean stick in the energy-drink arena, competing head-to-head in Formula One and action sports.
NASCAR is happy with Monster Energy’s emergence as its primary series sponsor.
“They’ve had some great success with marketing a lifestyle and an interest in racing, and they have a young fan base that’s interested in everything that Monster does,” NASCAR Chief Marketing Officer Jill Gregory told FOX Business when the partnership was announced in December. “We can tap into those fans and showcase what NASCAR does.”
Monster was equally hawkish on the combination at the time, with V.P. of Sports Marketing Mitch Covington saying the company wanted “to expose NASCAR to our existing base, at the same time exposing our customers to NASCAR. We think it’s a win-win for both parties.”
Part of the attraction is Monster’s digital presence, which is substantial. The company boasts more than 3 million Twitter followers — more than 10 times the number of people who follow Sprint — and nearly 25 million follow the company on Facebook. That’s largely comprised of millennial-age consumers who are savvy in the ways of the web. That will jazz up any company’s prospects faster than anything and NASCAR has committed heavily to its own digital progress to help fuel the transition.
It’s the first sponsorship for NASCAR that is more about lifestyle than anything else. Yes, there’s a product involved, but previous series sponsors, starting with Winston and powering on through Nextel and Sprint, were more about the spend, how it moved product and the bottom line, return-on-investment, than lifestyle.
Is it working?
Covington, talking to USA Today earlier this season, said the company was doing what it felt was right for the brand and doing it from the hip, rather than planning it to nth degree.
“(This is) more fun for me anyway, rather than being in a boardroom and planning something 12 months out,” Covington told USA TODAY Sports. “We’re learning this. And we didn’t go in with a lot of agency work where somebody who’s been doing it 30 years is suggesting what we do. To me that’s important because it brings in fresh ideas instead of, ‘Hey, this is how you do this.’ We want to write a new chapter, we want to do things that are cool right now.”
Travis Pastrana, who knows a lot about the energy-drink game in motorsports, said that Monster was in a much more enviable position to succeed where others failed in NASCAR, including Red Bull.
Source :speedsport.com
Comments
