The Covid-19 pandemic caused serious disruptions to live sports in the spring of 2020, including all forms of motorsport series and those companies and individuals that make their livelihoods from it.
In this context, companies that provided a ‘virtual’ racing platform (iRacing, rFactor) gained in popularity, and became a go-to promotional and participation outlet for many in the ‘live’ motorsports world, including sanctioning bodies (IndyCar, Formula 1, and Formula E), drivers, and individual companies.
In an effort to deliver value to a motorsport-focused client during the live racing shutdown, Connexions Global Marketing (CGM) partnered with (ABRS) inaugural ‘virtual’ three race iRacing Championship Series.
CGM ‘passed through’ the marketing rights it received from ABRS, including Official Partner status and branding on all communication and live event broadcasts, to CGM client,
In turn, CGM provided a Partner Pricing code that could be used at check out on the Omologato web site, plus an Omologato Tifosi watch as a prize to the overall winner of the championship.
ABRS hosted the championship on the iRacing platform, and promoted it and the Omologato assets extensively prior to the implementation of the championship. The ABRS marketing team provided extremely effective activation of the partnership throughout the three week series via its member newsletter and its social media channels.
Additionally, Omologato received numerous mentions during the race events by the race announcer, and was the sponsor of the virtual ‘chopper camera’ that provided overhead images of the races.
The results of the promotion were massively impressive, exceeding targeted sales volume by 666% and generating definitive increased brand awareness and business opportunities for the brand.
A final benefit: This promotion’s results succeeded in showing a company that an involvement with virtual racing could deliver brand value AND sales of a specific product category to a younger, tech savvy, digitally advanced audience that, otherwise, was not on the brand’s radar.