lastturnclub.com

 In July, we wrote in “Marketing 101, “To its fans, racing is a sport – an entertainment – and needs to be marketed as one. When you've done all the advertising you can do of the kind that says, "come have a fun weekend with these wonderful, powerful, fast cars in exciting racing at (Lime Rock, Road America, etc.),” then be my guest and tell the masses that, by the way, you're also relevant.”

Braselton’s disagreement with that sentiment was clear in the annual “State of the Series” message at Petit Le Mans in September, when CEO Scott Atherton proudly unveiled a new logo, with the words ‘Global Leader Green Racing’ replacing ‘World Class.’

So that’s the new message. It’s a long way from “For the Fans.” Had that slogan been associated with something that fans want beyond an open paddock and a grid walk, it might have developed into an effective marketing campaign. It never was.

Instead, the Braselton brain trust spent over a quarter million dollars on a study by British publisher/market consultant Haymarket. Not surprisingly, the consultant discovered the obvious: sports car fans are relatively well educated and relatively affluent.

Inexplicably, Braselton seems to have concluded that its fans would be more interested in obscure Swiss watches than in exciting racing, and threw away “For the Fans” in favor of the stunningly meaningless “World Class.”

A basic tenant of marketing was missed: the characteristics of your demographic target market do not define the motivation that will cause them to buy your product. BMW proved that with one of the biggest faux pas in advertising history, its “yuppie campaign” in which it abandoned performance, safety, and handling in favor of images of their cars at Long Island polo matches, with a smiling rich young crowd gathered around drinking martinis. All rather Great Gatsby.
 
In fact, BMW was so concerned about the “hangover” from that earlier campaign, especially after a 2005 study showed 75% of its target market still associated it with yuppies, that it launched its 2006 “Company of Ideas” campaign to dispel the image. “Analysts were struck by the originality of the ad campaign. Some felt that the campaign would win advertising awards and also help BMW to exorcise the ghosts of the past (read: its association with the yuppie phenomenon of the 1980s).”(Note 1)

If you find your crowd is young, wealthy, and well-educated, that tells you where you might find them (and thus select the media through with they can be reached), but it does not define what they want to buy or why they might buy it. If BMWs were bought by young upwardly mobile professionals because they were pretentious, they certainly wouldn’t admit to it.

Finding young upwardly-mobile professionals are an important market should lead you to sponsor golf, but it doesn’t define the message in the ads placed in those sponsorships. That’s the essential point here – the tendency to confuse media with message, which has to be based on the likely motivation (to purchase your product) of your target market, not  its other interests or characteristics.

The American Le Mans Series rightly concludes it’s important who is at its races. What they have lost sight of is that it’s equally important to know why they are there. Is it because the Series is “World Class?” Perhaps, but only if ‘World Class’ can be associated with something specific, like world class racing, or world class cars, or world class entertainment. Fans want good racing, great cars, exciting entertainment. A ‘world class’ tag doesn’t really further define those three things, does it? Still, in a good economy, with a road-racing-starved constituency, the Series grew its audience simply by not turning them off. If world class didn’t help anything, it didn’t seem to hurt, either.

I’ve covered 85 American Le Mans Series races and always made it a point to get out of the media center to spend some time in the crowd and along the fence; I’m confident that not one person would say they were at the track because the ALMS is ‘green.’ Spending on today’s green message pushes out spending on a more effective one, just as did spending on ‘World Class.’ A more effective message is one that:

1. Informs. When are the races, and where? When and where can I find broadcast (or cable) coverage?
2. Expands the market area. To Scott, Ed, and George: Minneapolis – St. Paul is in Road America’s market area.
3. Focuses on the real reasons your fans attend or watch. Good racing. Great cars. Exciting. Entertaining.

Do nothing more in your mass market ads than those three things. As is said in political campaigns, “Stay on Message.”

What about the “green initiative?” We’re all for it. In fact, readers of these pages know we were for it on day one, and every day since. It’s perfectly appropriate for the American Le Mans Series to create a ‘platform’ (not our favorite word, but one well-liked in Braselton) for manufacturers to develop and demonstrate cutting edge alternative-energy automotive solutions. But nothing in that would require the Series itself to become the primary advertiser for those initiatives.

Rather IMSA, working with auto and tire manufacturers, fuel suppliers, and other series participants, needs to create a rule set allowing development and demonstration, and the ALMS needs to focus – business-to-business – on would-be participants. Having done that, add value by turning its principal attention to getting fans to the track or onto the couch in front of an event broadcast.

Touting the “greenness” is the responsibility of participants – Audi its diesel, BP its butanol, Zytek its hybrid technology, Michelin its HydroEdge® tires with Green X performance. Besides the fact they’re better at it, the message will be specific and targeted.

The American Le Mans Series has two principal audiences: series participants and partners, and potential ticket buyers and consumers of its broadcasts. Braselton has conflated the two, trying to use a message that is appropriate for participants to attract fans. In doing so, it not only misses the second, but undermines the motivation of the first.
__________________
Note 1 – Case Study, MKTG 147, “BMW’s Company of Ideas Campaign: Targeting the Creative Class” International Center for Management Research.

The author  has a degree in Marketing from the University of Minnesota, worked in sales for Alcoa, was a Marketing Manager and Product Manager for software companies, and spent over 20 years in management consulting with leading corporations, including Shell, Chevron, Banta, Rohm & Haas, AT&T, (the Municipality of) Toronto, and others.