What's in a Name?

Automotive Industries, May, 2001 by Lora J. Bingham

Suppliers are paying big bucks for race-car sponsorships and reaping the benefits in many ways.

Racing empires are built on names. Henry Ford made a name for himself on the race track in 1901; two years later he launched Ford Motor Go. (see sidebar, pg. 34). And while fans still root for the drivers, success in motorsports today has as much to do with the names on the cars as who is behind the wheel.

Just about every car on the track today, no matter the racing series, has sponsor names and logos splashed all over it. For the sponsoring companies, the reasons for being involved are obvious. Most are consumer-product driven, and backing a racecar is like having a rolling billboard.

"Every time that car goes around the track, someone sees your logo; it makes an impression on them." says Michael Scholl of G2 Communications, a PR firm representing GM Racing.

Involvement by the OEMs seems a bit of a no-brainer as well. "We're in it just to go to the races," jokes Bo Puffer, Dodge's NASCAR marketing specialist. "Seriously though, we're in it to sell cars and trucks."

Gary Claudio, GM Racing's Group Marketing Manager, and Burt Diamond, Ford Racing's Global Marketing Manager, agree. "Racing allows us to make an emotional connection with our owners and potential owners and bring the excitement of what we do on the track to our own product portfollo," asserts Diamond. "There is a subconscious connection of how the vehicle performs on the track and how it performs on the street."

Exposure is the key, and not just for new products and programs. Herb Fishel, executive director of GM Racing, explains how GM is using racing to sustain and build a brand's attributes. "In the case of the Corvette, it already had the heritage and reputation of being a world-renowned sports car," he notes. "So it's a program of maintaining and reinforcing the brand's attributes."

And every race series has a different target audience. "Formula One is a very blue-blood, upper-crust type of racing event," says Diamond, pointing out the customer-fan relationship (and huge worldwide TV audience) that led Ford to field a Jaguar Fl car.

So, with so many clear reasons for OEMs and other consumer-driven-product sponsors to be involved, what does an automotive supplier get out of sponsoring a car?

"The Ultimate Platform"

Suppliers are in racing for the same basic reasons everyone else is: exposure. The fans can't go out and buy these products and services, but racing increases their awareness of them.

DuPont is a good example. It started sponsoring racecars in 1992 as a way to promote its refinish paint products. The connection proved so successful that DuPont now leverages racing activities acros the entire company. Its Winston Cup car often carries special paint jobs, like the Chrome Illusion "Superman" car Jeff Gordon drove in The Winston at Lowe's Motor Speedway in 1999. "It helps us sell products and raise the level of awareness of what plain old paint is, versus our high performance coatings," says Edd Stonich, marketing manager for DuPont Motorsports.

Dana Corp. got involved in the Craftsman Truck Series to get its name associated with its product range. "A lot of people never associate the name Dana with its brands, like Clevite, Raybestos and Wix," says Armedee Nadeau, Dana's motorsports marketing manager. "We needed to tell people who Dana is."

Bill Lafontaine, director of marketing and customer development at Delphi, says that his company's tag line, "Driving Tomorrow's Technology," embodies racing. "We want to convey ourselves as a very high-tech company and racing is just a terrific way to do that -- it's the ultimate technology platform for the automobile," he asserts.

Siemens' involvement stems not from its Automotive division as most would expect, but from its Energy Automation division. "We sell our products to just about every major manufacturer you can see," says Dan Redler, Siemens' motorsports marketing manager. "One way or another, our product is either a component of their product, or we are in the infrastructure of their buildings. We targeted this sport because our customer base demographics fit NASCAR's demographics to a tee."

There's more to supplier involvement than simple exposure, though. Dana, Delphi, DuPont, Siemens and Visteon cite business-to-business (B2B) relationship building as an important part of their motorsports programs. It builds awareness of the company and its products, as well as providing opportunities for a less formal business setting. Mark Horvath, associate director of product communications for Visteon, is quick to point out that Visteon's involvement with the CART series attracts their key customers and suppliers, puts them in a position to see the technology available in racing, and allows them to introduce their staff and customers' staff to that technology.

Redler also points out advantages. "Getting tickets in Atlanta to the Hawks or the Falcons or the Braves isn't really that big of a deal," he says. "How many luxury suite boxes can you go to in a year? At our race hospitality, we bring our driver in, putting our customer closer to the action, closer to a potential hero."