Marketing

[Lightspeed]

Among the challenges CART still faces is marketing its product. However, marketing is a costly endeavor with limited returns. CART must get its Public Relations in order. What's the difference between marketing and PR? One is pricey and has low credibility with audiences the other is relatively inexpensive and builds a brand from the bottom up. I don't know what the situation in America is, but here in Canada CART has no media presence despite Canadian drivers and a Canadian past champion. I can only conclude that CART Public Relations is not getting the messages out into the market.

Why do you think your local media all cover the same story? Because they all received the same media releases. This is what CART must do, get their messages out at the local level more effectively. I mean, why does my local paper, here 700km north of the border, cover NASCAR, because of all the Canadians in NASCAR? No, because NASCAR sent them the media release.

Here is one area that media convergence can be in CART's favour. They only have to find the resources to take advantage of it.

[mac]

Marketing is product based. You know, the 4 p's of the marketing mix:

- Product (ensuring that the product is right, and of quality)
- Price (ensuring that the price establishes a value notion)
- Promotion (advertising)
- Place (where you can get the product)

Public Relations is a management function, and is communications based. It is a more two-way function than marketing, which is focused mainly on propogating information. Public Relations is to do with the following things:

- building & maintaining image
- publicity
- communication
- public affairs
- issues management
- government relations
- financial public relations (ie. maintaining a stock price)
- community relations
- industry relations
- minority relations
- advertising
- press agentry
- promotion
- media relations and usage
- propaganda

It is a PR practitioner's job to also be an expert on various media and provide advice on an organisation's public profile.

People like to throw the term PR about pretty loosely, without actually understanding what it means or entails.

[Crash Test]

I do a lot of PR for local motorsport here in Australia, and it's amazing what coverage you can get by just putting a bit of effort into finding all possible outlets. I've found that a Press Release that might take 20mins to do can get published in over 30 local-regional-major newspapers, plus get into a number of specialty mags and of course all over the web. Say at the end of the day it winds up in 50 different locations, but that would come from a mailing list of 250 odd addresses. Obviously for an organisation like CART, you wouldn't bother with local rags, you could literally get thousands of addresses.

A few things to keep in mind is that you must provide something interesting, and have enough content so that different groups pick out different things for their specific needs.

I think a fair bit of the responsibility must go to the teams to promote their teams, and especially to the local events. They can quite easily take responsibility for local distribution, heck they should be the ones who know best the local area and possible opportunities...

[mac]

A lot of PR is merely about getting news coverage. That is, not advertising, but actual favourable news stories published in visible publications.

[sgw2]

CART pays stripends to Robin Miller and David Philips. At least the former is still seen by many as a journalist and not a shill. But for how long?

CART's problems are not PR or marketing, but really a very bad business model for competitors. It honestly hasn't been working for at least three full years. Sponsors like Pennzoil, Budweiser and Marlboro left before the engine makers.

IMHO I feel it is the lack of US focus, in product, drivers, and schedule. This is where the sponsorship came from (save Player's and the Mexicans). And unless CART becomes 75% European based racing, there is no other source for such a high level of funding a top series needs.

F1 survives on sponsorship from European marketing divisions of companies. But they are also suffering from the lack of focus; as their schedule becomes steadily less European, reducing the number of companies that find value in it. Like CART, F1 tried to by-pass this issue by appealing to auto manufacturers, who care less about the locale than the prestige. But as with CART, that source has run its' course.

While F1 has the revenue to survive anyway (provided it keeps the European TV audience), CART does not even come close.

PR has become an issue as CART has tried desperately to spin news, thinking this is what has scared sponsors, rather than listen to what the departing sponsors have repeatedly told them. Winning the PR war does nothing. Marketing a product nobody in the US corporate world wants to buy, is not the answer. Making a product that the sponsors want is.

That the IRL has not grown more than small amount, shows that it has not really met that need either. But seeing their field full of cars with real paying sponsors and salaried drivers should open CARTisan eyes to recognize that as flawed as that product is, by being US focused it has weathered the sponsor erosion far better.

CART needs to make a better product for sponsors before the cash runs out. That is not PR or Marketing BS.

[Liz]

Well, we have beaten the "Woo the USA or Die" horse to death and fed it to the fishes, so I won't bother recycling that argument. I will merely observe that the six races outside the USA account for 25% of the fan base and are the only venues growing noticeably. So we outside the USA are doing our parts. You Americans need to get moving drag your friends and your newspapers on side.

But I do agree that this year we all have to focus on making the product as attractive to sponsors and fans as we can. This includes not whining about foreign drivers, not calling people "Losers" before they have ever driven a single lap for CWS, and above all else encouraging any and every sponsor we may know or suspect is interested in our series. To sell a product you have to believe in it. And to believe in it you have to spend a lot less time whining and a lot more time singing praises. Do you think a fashion model will get work if she spends more than half her time wringing her hands and saying "I'm poor, I'm fat, I'm ugly, my dress is out of style, my feet hurt, nobody likes me, you're a racist, all the other girls in that magazine are getting breaks because they're not Americans," or do you think she'd be better off touting her good points and making the best she can of her doubtful ones? We are all ambassadors for the sport; let us be Alex Zanardi and not Michael Andretti.

[Tiresmoke]

Originally posted by sgw2
IMHO I feel it is the lack of US focus, in product, drivers, and schedule. This is where the sponsorship came from (save Player's and the Mexicans). And unless CART becomes 75% European based racing, there is no other source for such a high level of funding a top series needs.

hoooo doggy, are you predicting the downfall of the IRL? god, that sounds familiar. the american oval series that forgot what it was started for, then started to go oversees, more and more foreign drivers, then starts looking at road courses... lack of focus indeed!!

You have to be where your sponsors want you to be. The teams work for the sponsors. The teams should tell the series where they need to be to keep the sponsors happy. A lot of people forgot that. A simple plan would be to situate yourself in the world's largest markets, or in the world's emerging markets and put on a show there.

[sgw2]

Tiresmoke,

Yes I would if the IRL gets its's non-US schedule above 3 or four races. As it is the IRL has 15 US and 1 in Japan in exchange for a major sponosr on several of its' cars (Pioneer, Honda, and Panasonic came with that). For CART the ratio is 11-8, so the issue more pronounced. If Pook has his way it seems likely 2004 will be 10-9 (either way).

By that same criteria I gave Japan in the IRL, Mexico pays for itself in CART, and so does Canada because of Player's. But that changes when Player' exits. Asutralia and Europe are only a drain on the budegt for the teams.

Liz refuses to acknowledge this, and instead attacks anyone who brings it up of being anti-Canadian (yes Canada is a likely target for reduction in a market focused CART). She also implies that a US focused series would adopt WoO type rules. This is the opposite of what I said. As I think CART needs a strong US base to stay technologically advanced. If the pool of sponsors shrinks as CART becomes less American, then cost cutting and low technology formula becomes inevitable. I also offered CART an alternative source of funding, namely the EU; but that requires a much more rapid schedule shift, and movement of CART HQ to London, along with it's largely Indianapolis based teams.

Liz and others can prove me and other US focus types wrong if CART can land significant secondary and primary sponosrs from Canada, Australia and Europe with the current schedule mix. I don't think they can. The common sense view says CART offers the best value to the Mexicans (2 races in Mexico, 2 in the LA Basin, 1 in Denver, 1 in Northern California, all with significant Mexican populations). The only race CART lacks that Mexicans would want is Indy. CART works for Canadian fans, but carries too high a sponsorship pricetag for anyone other thn Player's. The result is event sponsors only, not cars.

The issue will not die until either CART replaces the US sponosrs it has lost with non-US sponsors, especially Canadian and European, and CARTs cash burn rate diminishes.

Until then the bruden of proof is really on the Canadian, English and Australian lobbies to deliver the sponsors, not just the fans. The American lobby has the facts on their side. I'm with Robin Miller and Mario Andretti, and not with Chris Pook or Jon Vannini on this issue.

[Lee Janotta]

sgw2,
I agree with you entirely, but arguing with Liz is like trying to drive a sprint car with your teeth.

The money required currently is such that even if they're interested, smaller sponsors in the US and Canada can't even hope to get involved, even if they want to. That's one of my big complaints with the proposed V-10 engines, they're still too expensive.

The European market's already far too saturated with auto racing, but Australia and the Americas are hungry for more! Admittedly, the US is a tough nut to crack, but it _can_ be done, as it was in the early to mid '90s. It's my belief CART squandered that market penetration by going more upscale and European. IRL's making the same mistake now, chasing the money instead of making good long-term decisions.

European and Asia markets are never going to see the series as anything but a novelty, but three road races in Brazil and another Aussie round could be hugely successful, and proper promotion could bring around the US market.

[Liz]

I said nothing at all about World of Outlaws (I don't even know what that is). The word I used was "WOO" which is a word that people used to use before they jumped into bed on the first date (or immediately upon exchanging first names and astrological signs) -- that is, it is a process of courtship, of convincing someone that you are what they want most in the world, through various inducements including persuasive speech. You could look it up.

The teams should indeed tell the series what it needs to attract sponsors; and the sponsors they should be going after are the European and global sponsors that are not cigarette based. Yes, we DO have a FEW other products in Canada besides liquor and cigarettes, that could sponsor cars! We must go out and find them and induce them to sponsor cars. What about service industries? Who has the most money outside the Indian Casinos? Lawyers. Why isn't any team going after big law firms looking for sponsorship? Our firm just won the biggest medical malpratice case in Canadian history. Surely someone could get in there and talk to someone about spending some of that huge settlement on Paul Tracy! Why not prospect doctors and dentists? How about Greyhound or Canada Coach Lines? Walk down any street in town and see how many of those companies might be induced to sponsor a car at some level. Be creative.

Lee, how do you know that "European and Asian markets are never going to see the series as anything but a novelty"? It was the Asian market that developed the fax machine, invented in the USA but abandoned because the sniffy Americans said there was "no market" for such a thing. And to take it from the sublime to the ridiculous, Prince Edward Island does a roaring business every year in Japanese tourists who worship Anne of Green Gables and pay huge dollars to be married in the parlour of "Green Gables" and buy red pigtailed wigs and replica clothing so they can dress up like Anne and her friends. A country that will do that, will do anything.

[Jay]

Actually there's a lot of technologies that are developed in North America, don't go anywhere... spring up in asia and become popular (South Korea's the most wired (or wireless) nation on earth...and by a long ways!) and work their way to Europe and finally North America. Anyway, that was just an aside...

[Crash Test]

"European and Asia markets are never going to see the series as anything but a novelty, but three road races in Brazil and another Aussie round could be hugely successful, and proper promotion could bring around the US market."
- Another Aussie round would probably be well attended, but the Gold Coast event would probably have clauses in place preventing it. Plus with the exchange rate, I doubt any Australian company would see value in $A14mil...

What should CART do? Rebuild its American base, or give up and go international?

[Liz]

Or simply promote the daylights out of the popular foreign races and then point out to the American tracks that they're missing a great opportunity as a large number of the people attending these "Foreign" races are in fact Americans?

[Lee Janotta]

Originally posted by Liz
Or simply promote the daylights out of the popular foreign races and then point out to the American tracks that they're missing a great opportunity as a large number of the people attending these "Foreign" races are in fact Americans?

Woah... Wait a minute, where are you getting that info?

Okay, for the Canadian races, I can understand it, and Monterey, but not beyond that...

The track owners aren't the problem, and the idea of going after law firms is _not_ going to work...

The Japanese go crazy over fads... Tony George honestly has a better chance of convincing them that the Indy 500 is the essence of American motorsport than he does of convincing Americans!

A big downside of B2B sponsors is that they don't use the drivers in TV commercials, although the drivers are expected to do even more arse-kissing.

[Jay]

I think Cart should work on attracting fans in their current markets, and that includes the US. I think they are doing the right thing in building up their races as big events in urban areas, or near urban areas. Cart will never have the middle-America Nascar crowd, it's just not what they want to see. Cart needs to get its cities around North America enthused about the race. If they can do that, I have no doubt that TV and sponsor interest will increase. It's a model similar to what the NFL have done with amazing success. And, from everything Chris Pook has said, it looks like that's what he's trying to do too.

[Crash Test]

Keep in mind that CART used to flog the living **** out of the quality of racing and star names. With all due respect to Vasser, Tracy, Carpentier and co, they're all very marketable, but Joe Blow in the streets wouldn't know them from a bar of soap. If they can somehow turn these guys into 'Supermen' in the publics eye, it would probably go a fair way. And let's face it, the racing last year probably wasn't the best in recent memory. It was good compared to what is going on elsewhere, but there were some processional races on dodgy tracks (I'm looking your way Miami and Denver). Hopefully with the changes this year, everything in that regard will sort itself out.

I still think if CART is to win over the USA, it needs decent free to air coverage. If Speed is only accessible by XX% of the population, then you are only going to get less than XX% of the population watching. The problem is, that free to air TV is very expensive these days...

Unless American tracks are completly daft, they would know what gets punters along, they won't need to proved anything. When CART has something that is going to be a big money spinner for those involved, they will jump at it. That's the problem of the open wheeler war, everyone is a loser .

[Jay]

Those three might not be household names in the US, but Paul Tracy definately is in Canada. And I think some have heard of Vasser down south, but you're right, Cart has to build on this.

One of the reasons Paul Tracy is a household name in Canada, is that TSN and previously the major American and Canadian Networks have ensured that every Cart race gets aired live or slightly later in the day. As great as Speed's coverage is, it just doesn't have the reach that is needed. For all practical purposes the only races you can consider televised are the ones that the major American networks pick up. Speed isn't exactly going to get too many channel flipper's attention the way CBS or Fox would. For example, if you're not a racing fan, and you just want to see what's on TV, odds are pretty low you'd check Speed TV (even if you got it), but it's pretty good you'd see what's on Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, or in Canada the CBC, CTV or Global And many many fans get into racing through...simple channel flipping... Like me for one!

[Liz]

The difficulty with putting racing on land line network TV is that (1) racing is always going to be pre-empted or delayed by golf, baseball, womens' basketball, cheerleading contests and other sports; and (2) most network executives are going to say "We already broadcast racing." To them, ALMS and NA$CAR and CWS are all "racing" and they count it in a lump the way they count "baseball" and "basketball".

Lee, if you visit "Trackside" or talk to racing people, you will find large numbers of Americans travelling to foreign races. For example, there is a good sized crowd travelling to Brands Hatch this year. A lot of American people I know attended the Mexico City race, and I bet some of them attended Monterrey.

CWS should talk to the people who travel to races and find out why they do it. In fact, why not use these people in advertising?

[Crash Test]

Fully agree with the "they are all motorsport" theory. I know talking with some people form some major Australian newspapers, that sports editors suffer a great deal of ignorance, and that there are too many different types of motorsport to cover. If count things like drag racing, speedway, rallying, motorcycling, you don't have much spare space for everything else, F1, Nascar, CART, IRL, ALMS, everything else.

What open wheel racing in North America is to put together a package that the free to air channels would pay for, and give more priority too. If the drivers were superstars, and the racing brilliant, then that would go a long way to fixing the problem. However, with the IRL and CART going for the same piece of pie, it's going to be hard to have any winner...

[indycool]

The sponsor problem is this: You have a strong company which wants to market its product through racing in Canada. It has three races to do so. But the rest of the races are a waste for a full sponsorship. Same with the U.S. to companies that don't market globally. Same with Europe with companies that don't market in the U.S.

So, as CART changes its "vision" to do this or that in a particular year (i.e., "we're going to Europe," "we're going to Mexico," "we're going to Bangkok", etc.), these sponsors are trying to hit a moving target trying to figure out its value to THEM.

Marlboro, indeed, made that decision. It already had Ferrari F1 internationally. It chose to not "double up" with CART internationally and the international races were a waste to it. So it chose to market in the IRL in the U.S.

And Liz, I respectfully disagree that Yanks are flocking to Brand's Hatch, etc. by the thousands. Ain't gonna happen. Few have the money to do so. I remember when Detroit had F1 and had been convinced that people from all over the world would flock to Detroit. They even advertised ticket sales in papers in Guatemala City, of all things. It was a waste.

At Brand's Hatch? A few hundred, perhaps. But certainly no more.

[Crash Test]

Yeah, I know at the Surfers Paradise round, we do get a fair few international visitors. I remember sitting with a group in 98, and they were mostly having their annual holiday, and they just made sure they were passing through this part of the world on race weekend. If the race wasn't there, they would still be visiting the country.