Why do it?

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch) 04/29/2014 at 13:00 • Filed to: mini rant

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Can I ask a serious question: Why do Manufactures support a full factory race team, or at the very least partially sponsor a race team for events like DAKAR, and WRC and then COMPLETELY fail to use those events for marketing their wares?

MINI competes in WRC and has a full works team for the DAKAR...and wins, but do you even remotely associate mini with WRC or Dakar? do they mention it at all? can you buy even a sticker package in the vast library of crappy cosmetic add ons that even references it (aside from generic checker wrap)? What a waste of good press.

Lexus, same goes for you, you had a great team effort at the DAKAR and BAJA 1000 and you don't even casually mention it, anywhere...for any reason. I get that you may want to use it as a test bed for technologies and durability, but 'cmon! get some marketing from it!

Milky > HammerheadFistpunch 04/29/2014 at 13:05

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Something Porsche actually did right.

Tom McParland > HammerheadFistpunch 04/29/2014 at 13:05

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Perhaps it is because the target sales demographic for those models does not care about motor-sports.

HammerheadFistpunch > Milky 04/29/2014 at 13:06

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Porsche is a great example of knowing their market and speaking clearly to them. This one off, though only slightly out of character for them...is amazing.

HammerheadFistpunch > Tom McParland 04/29/2014 at 13:07

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So then the question is reversed....why spend the money?

BoulderZ > HammerheadFistpunch 04/29/2014 at 13:17

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It's a fair bet that the outlay of that money is very carefully scrutinized, and analyzed to "maximize their ROI" (that phrase makes me cringe, but pretty much every biz-head in a suit thinks that way). In other words, outside of mistakes, they try to never do anything unless they believe it'll net more money in their (and their shareholders') pockets. So, yeah, why spend the sponsor money, and then not use it in marketing?

My guess has 2 parts, which combined are "segment your market and max your sales to each segment". First part: the people whose market behavior will be influenced by the usual marketing approaches (ads and such) are not moved by motorsports bona fides, and in fact might be negatively moved. Second part: the people whose market behavior will be moved positively by motorsports connections will get full exposure to that without the manufacturer having to spend any more money. It's already on the race coverage, all over the results pages, photo blogs, auto blogs, and everywhere else motorsports fans look. You even have a couple of (very nice) pics in this post. In other words, fans and journos will do the job for them for free, and the non- or anti- motorsports potential customers never have to be the wiser. Anyway, that's my guess. I'm a scientist, not a biz person. I just have to work with a bunch of them. All. Day.

King Ginger, not writing for Business Insider > HammerheadFistpunch 04/29/2014 at 15:15

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This is an ongoing thing for me in general with motorsports. The connection between competition (especially in spec series) and actual product recognition/sales and sponsor ROI is tenuous at best. Hell, in today's world, there isn't even a good working model for demonstrating a causal connection between advertising/marketing and final sales...it is the great lie we marketing/sales/research folks keep telling producers of things so we can get paid haha.