Providers of Multiple Consumer and B2B Business Development Opportunities.
I recently attended the 2018 Indianapolis 500 Mile Race in a quasi working / VIP guest capacity, hosting executives of an international consumer goods company that I brought into the sport with a program planned as an integral part of its marketing and sales effort to extend the brand’s awareness and sales in North America.
Like many companies I have pitched on the fantastic brand awareness and business development merits of getting involved in global motorsport partnerships via IndyCar and Formula E, they were originally skeptical. However, once they agreed to sit down and have an exploratory open minded discussion about the opportunities and how their goals could be achieved with this, the picture became clearer.
And when a suitable opportunity came together with an IndyCar team, they entered the sport to begin the 2018 season with a consumer activation plan in place revolving heavily around the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race.
Last week they travelled to Indianapolis to experience, what turned out to be, a fabulous VIP guest weekend organized by their partner, the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Verizon IndyCar team, punctuated by the 102nd running of the race.
My guests were blown away. First by the sheer magnitude of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway itself, next with the 85,000 fans attending the Friday “Carburetion Day” program, then by attending a nicely tricked out Saturday team dinner attended by team owners and executives, along with CEOs and owners of many of the team’s commercial partners, and finally the race itself with a live audience of over 300,000 people! Like I say to those who have not visited “Indy”, one can’t fully grasp the event without actually experiencing it.
The brand’s logo was featured predominantly throughout the weekend event via branding on the team race cars, drivers’ and crew suits, show car, team garage and the team’s and their major commercial partner’s hospitality areas.
Not only was the weekend and partnership a consumer brand development program, but it also encompassed immense B2B development opportunities via engagement with the team’s extensive suite of commercial partners in attendance.
Team Partner CEOs and staff of both multi-billion dollar and small to mid-sized companies were engaged in talks leading to the genesis of what will be the opening of new sales and revenue channels for the brand that will reach its target market, in addition to adding value to the team’s partners. A win win win for the brand, team, and corporate partners.
The old adage in motorsports of “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” was never more pronounced as this company experiencing the best Monday of sales ever following the Sunday race. In this case, “Execute the plan during the weekend, and see the results Monday and going forward” is the applicable phrase and result.
After attending this event and witnessing first hand the concrete ROI this brand achieved through working in coordination with its team partner, the multiple opportunities for brands to develop their businesses through a well planned IndyCar partnership is well worth exploring.