As Nascar's fan base grows, so does drug's sales opportunity

Drug Store News, June 21, 2004 by Michael Johnsen

"From the sponsor perspective, you are seeing more retail involvement," Nascar's Giangola said. "Target is a sponsor now. Certainly Lowe's and Home Depot and that segment are invoiced now. And on the consumer products side, Gillette debuted a Nascar promotional platform this year," Giangola added.

In fact, Gillette has embarked on an all-inclusive $20 million Nascar promotion, called Gillette Young Guns, where Gillette has partnered with six rising stars within, the driver circuit. The driver's include last year's cup winner Matt Kenseth, as well as Dale Earnhardt Jr., Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvic and Jimmie Johnson. "Currently all six of these drivers are in the top 10 in [Nextel Cup] standings, the best of the best," noted Gillette spokesman Eric Kraus. "We want to equate the performance of Gillette's grooming products with the performance of these six drivers," Kraus said.

"We have FSIs, we have Gillette Young Guns-themed point-of-purchase materials, and we have dedicated Young Guns advertising that's running on network TV," Kraus said, noting just how robust the promotion program is.

Even Implus, marketer of AirPlus foot care inserts, can participate in Nascar promotions, though to a smaller degree than a $15 million car sponsorship. Implus is placing a logo on the rear hood of a stock car in both the Busch series and the Craftsman Truck series. Indeed, Implus has even been offering co-promotion deals with retail partners as a Nascar point of difference.

"The ROI [from promoting through Nascar] is pretty good," commented Andrews. "We've returned on the investment this year about $2 million in measurable value," Andrews said, through increased promotional sell-through, for instance. And that's before measuring any value from media exposure. "We re expecting somewhere in the range of $1.5 million to $2.5 million worth of media exposure, which is a lot larger, obviously, than the investment we've made," he said.

The many faces of the NASCAR sponsors

Sponsor               Product             Sponsorship

Albertsons                                No. 7 truck Craftsman Truck
                                            series
Anheuser-Busch        Budweiser           No. 8 car Nextel Cup series
Bayer                 Alka-Seltzer Plus/
                        Bayer/One-A-Day
                        WeightSmart       No. 17 car Busch series
Clorox Co./Unilever   Clorox/Wisk         No. 47 car Busch series
  Coors Brewing Co./    Coors Light/
  P&G                   Prilosec OTC      No. 40 car Nextel Cup series
Eastman Kodak         Kodak               No. 77 car Nextel Cup series
Eveready Battery      Energizer i         No. 33 car Busch series
GlaxoSmithKline       Wellbutrin XL       No. 18 car Nextel Cup series
General Mills         Cheerios            No. 43 car Nextel Cup series
Hershey Foods         Reese's             No. 21 car Busch series
Kellogg Co.           Kellogg's           No. 5 car Nextel Cup series
Kimberly-Clark        Kleenex             No. 27 car Busch series
Mars                  M&M's               No. 38 car Nextel Cup series
Miller Brewing Co.    Miller High Life/   No. 22 car Busch series
                        Miller Light      No. 2 car Nextel Cup series
NVE Pharmaceuticals   Stacker 2           No. 23 car Busch series
Pfizer                Viagra              No. 6 car Nextel Cup series
Procter & Gamble      Tide                No. 32 car Nextel Cup series
Target                                    No. 41 car Nextel Cup series
Teva                  Copaxone            No. 102 truck Craftsman Truck
                                            series
TrimSpa               TrimSpa             No. 332 car Busch series
Wyeth Consumer        Advil Liquid Gels   No. 49 car Busch series

Source: Drug Store News research