Gentlemen, start your marketing campaigns.
You know the NASCAR season is rolling to the grid when the press releases and outright outreaches take on the subtlety of a carpet-bombing. It you want to be a part of the action, frankly, you only need to master the use of several key words and terms found in the modern MarketSpeak handbook. Such as …
Leverage … core … stakeholder engagement … drive growth … partner value … brand, as in reputation.
Well, the folks at RFK Racing, bless their hearts, turned in the gold-standard paragraph in a recent press release. Actually, they did it in a single sentence.
You probably know Mike Massaro, the longtime TV host/reporter for ESPN and others. He’s back in NASCAR, but this time as part of the marketing and communications team at the Roush Fenway Keselowski three-car team.
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With that in mind, settle in and behold the most beautiful piece of modern marketing verbiage ever put to paper.
“In his new role at RFK Racing, Massaro will leverage his core competencies in the communications field, public speaking and stakeholder engagement to help the team continue to drive audience growth, provide increased partner value and enhance the team’s brand reputation.”
I italicized “field” because if there’s a miss, it was there, where they could’ve used today’s favored buzzword: space. Oh well, maybe next time.
At long last, Richard Petty bellies up to the bar
As you may have already read, Richard Petty has partnered with a distiller to loan his image to a brand of whiskey called Roaming Man, one of the products found in the Sugarlands liquor cabinet.
The King held out quite a while, but he’s finally entering a no-holds-barred endorsement deal with the booze industry. If you’re old enough to recall Petty’s career, buried deep in the gray matter you might have a gnawing thought about the peculiarity of all this.
That’s because King Richard famously, or infamously, never directly accepted sponsorship from any liquor companies, even back when the Anheusers and Busches and Millers and others were slapping their logos and colors on hoods and quarterpanels.
It was a promise made to his mother, Elizabeth, who passed away in 2006.
Yes, he did run one Busch Clash, back in 1980, the only year he was eligible.
Huh? Didn’t he race another 12 years after that season?
Yep, but in those days, the Clash was open only to pole winners from the previous season, and the King, the all-time record pole winner with 123, didn’t win another pole from 1980 through ’92 — a span of 229 starts.
Calling all NASCAR ambassadors!
Got a call out of the blue Tuesday from Ryan Blaney’s PR rep, wondering if I’d be interested in a phone interview with the 2023 champ.
Sure, why not? Details aren’t nailed down yet, but man, that sure felt random. Such things were once routine, but lately, it generally works the other way around — media contacts team, not vice versa.
But Wednesday morning might’ve delivered the answer to all this. Borrowing from the PGA Tour’s recent Player Impact Program, NASCAR has created a “Driver Ambassador Program” and funded it, according to The Athletic website, with several million bucks.
Drivers earn bonus points, literally, for every 15 minutes of “promotion” beyond what’s mandated by the sanctioning body (such as post-race media sessions, etc.).
This, in theory and perhaps practice, is designed to get the stars of the sport involved in promoting the product (“brand reputation,” remember?). Fifteen minutes here and there can pile up enough bonus points and eventually create a decent little postseason Christmas bonus.
Oh, how long would I have for the proposed Blaney phoner? You guessed it, 15 minutes. Hey, I’ve been used for much worse.
Now, to the inbox …
The customers always write (yes, I stole that one)
HEY, WILLIE!
You gave me a chuckle with yesterday’s fishing roundup (Jan. 31). That “baby woodpecker” you saw was actually a full-grown downy woodpecker. They wear a white stripe down the back.
GENE
HEY, GENE!
That came the same day I nearly mistook a sheepshead for a black drum, so it appears I may be weak with all God’s creatures.
But wait, research alert! I looked up pics of your beloved downy woodpecker and that white stripe doesn’t jibe with my memory of that tiny ’pecker on the bird feeder.
HEY, WILLIE!
So, I’m waiting for my much-anticipated holographic souvenir Daytona 500 tickets to arrive in the mail, with maybe a Michael Jordan logo on them, and I get instructions to download and print my ticket myself.
Now I have dumpy throwaway tickets. What gives?
RON
HEY, RON!
Beats me, but I know this. Don’t throw away those throwaway tickets until Feb. 17. Or the 18th, depending on the weather, which we refuse to trust these days.
HEY, WILLIE!
You made a very dismissive comment about fans saying they “will never watch again. Until next time.” As if they aren’t serious and this isn’t a real issue.
As someone who used to watch around 30 races a year, I now watch about one race per year. And that’s not uncommon.
Your comment was almost insulting to the average NASCAR fan. You come off as more tone deaf than even NASCAR.
LARRY
HEY, LARRY!
I’m sure there are plenty of former NASCAR fans out there who left and either never came back or only come back for a drive-by.
But frankly, the same holds true for the NBA, MLB, Golf when Tiger isn’t playing, and, Lord knows, IndyCar.
Only Formula One and women’s basketball have gained audience in the U.S., largely thanks to that Netflix show and Caitlin Clark.
Meanwhile, the NFL (and college ball to a slightly lesser degree) continues to expand its black-hole gravitational pull and swallow the entire sports-entertainment universe.
— Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
