Sponsorships give advertising companies good opportunities to promote their products to prospective customers. Sponsorship is unlike traditional advertising methods because the sponsored activities, products, and organizations connect with the minds of prospective customers. Sponsorships offer propensity to buy, brand building and increased awareness. The biggest impact comes where there is a direct connection between the sponsored event and the sponsor (Ragsdale, 2016). This is most common in sports where companies selling sports merchandise sponsor, sports teams. This paper compares and contrasts sponsorships strategies employed by Monster Energy and Coca-Cola in their sponsorship deal with National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).
NASCAR has been very effective with sponsorships among the racing group.
Organizations associated with NASCAR experienced massive brand growth due to the obvious connections with the racing community. These sponsorship partnerships between NASCAR and Corporate organizations involve about 25% of all Fortune 500 organizations and about 33% of Fortune 100 organizations. The relationship is good among race fans as the customers are three times likely to shift brands compared to non-race fans. 50% of ardent NASCAR fans mostly buy from brands or companies associated with the sport.
NASCAR is an auto racing operating and sanctioning company that holds a series of stock-care racing in the United States.
The organization has multiple sponsorship deals with various multi-national companies. 140 Fortune 500 organizations have sponsorship deals within the game. The list of Fortune 500 organizations sponsoring the game has increased every year within the last six years. Fortune 500 organizations sponsoring the game have also risen by 29% since 2008. Monster Energy and Coca-Cola are some of the main sponsors of NASCAR within the last few years.
Despite the massive success experienced by the same companies, they employ different strategies to reach prospective customers. However, some of their strategies are similar.
An organization can endorse a sponsor a foundation, a series, a track, a team or a driver. While Monster Energy sponsors the entire series, Coca-Cola sponsors a team of drivers known as the racing family. The series sponsorship adopted by Monster allows the organization to put its image and advertisements on all the racecars thereby reaching the entire audience. The deal enables Monster Energy to be the official partner of NASCAR for the whole season until 2021 based on the current deal or longer if they reach an agreement. On the other hand, sponsoring a specific driver allows Coca-Cola to have a team of drivers to promote the brand personally thereby reaching out to the drivers’ fans. The relationship shows how dedicated Coca-Cola is to connecting with the most brand-committed fans in the game.
While Coca-Cola has been sponsoring races for a long time, the company started its relationship with NASCAR in 1998. Coca-Cola is deeply involved in the game, including driver relationships, race entitlements and the rights of track pouring. Monster Energy on the other hand started its NASCAR sponsorship in 2016. This means that Coca-Cola has a long-term relationship with the game’s fans, which puts it in a decent position while Monster Energy is trying to build that relationship from scratch.
NASCAR’s biggest sponsor is Monster Energy is the official sponsor of the Cup series, which is the competition of the game’s best drivers. Its strategy mainly revolves around the production of social content, digital content in the grassroots to help its sponsorship programs. Contrary, Coca-Cola’s strategy is to maximize on its long-term association with two of sports tracks, Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (SMI) and International Speedway Corporation (ISC). Through their relationship with SMI, ISC and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Coca-Cola is providing free drinks to fans only 18 racing tracks rather than the entire series strategy adopted by Monster Energy.
Besides, Monster Energy concentrates on sponsoring the entire organization and its various events, which gives, puts them in a good position and a major stage as it fights Red Bull in the market without associating with individual teams. They are the official sponsor of the title NASCAR’s main series that is watched by millions of fans across the world. The increasing popularity of the Cup series puts Monster Energy is a good position to connect with the fans minds. Comparably, Coca-Cola has relationships with individual drivers (Bragg, et al, 2018). A prominent part of the brand’s affiliation with NASCAR is the Coca-Cola Racing Family. The group mainly comprises of the best drivers like Tony Stewart Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman, Jeff Burton, Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray, Kurt Busch, Bobby Labonte, Denny Hamlin, and Joey Logano. The drivers personally endorse the brands on their official social media sites as well as through Television adverts.
Monster Energy places billboards across the racetracks, places banners on all vehicles, and dresses all the drivers participating in the main cup series. The team labels all their windshield posters with the Monster logo. The whole of NASCAR appears bright green as the competition is also referred to as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. The display is however limited as NASCAR only requires them to have the sponsorship logos during the weekends when racing rather than display it all through (Scott, 2017). Monster also uses twelve Monster Girls mostly models during races. The models work as brand ambassadors together with celebrity promoters. Dressed on clothes with Monster Energy Emblems, they entertain the fans thereby evoking a warm connection.
On the contrary, Coca-Cola dresses current drivers Elliott Sadler, David Ragan, and Kevin Harvick as well as retired drivers like Michael Waltrip, Kyle Petty, Ned Jarrett and Dale Jarrett. In addition to dressing them, the individuals are featured in packages, promotions and advertisements.
One of the biggest similarities between the two brands is that both of them target to penetrate the middle-aged market. Their main strategy is to develop its client base from the fans of the game who would be proud to associate with their brands. Monster Energy has an 18 percent customer base in the United States. Twenty-five percent of their customers are aged below 35 years. Forty percent of Coca-Cola’s fans are between 30 and 40 years. They, therefore, target to increase the percentage of customers above 35 years. Studies show that about 33% of adults in the United States associate themselves with NASCAR fans, therefore, giving the two companies a large audience for their brands. The mean age of NASCAR fans is 48 years, which would enable the two companies to increase the number of fans above 35 years.
Similarly, they are both soft drinks companies that sponsor NASCAR events with drinks to endure them to the wide fan base. It is well known that most NASCAR fans like to have a good time and the two companies provide just that (Scott, 2017). The companies give fans multiple sampling cans instead of pouring them in jars since they want the customers to test the refreshments in a similar way they will buy them.
Product promotion using multiple avenues like celebrity endorsers, employees, models, free samples, events sponsorship applied by the two companies can be used in my product promotion. The strategy helps build a positive relationship with the different types of consumers with different preferences. The relationship between both companies and NASCAR through their links with most tracks, series, current drivers, and retired drivers builds a perfect connection between the game, the fans, and the brands. It enables a complete integration that links the two companies with NASCAR fans at all dimensions, locally, internationally, at home, in stores, and on the track.
In conclusion, NASCAR provides a perfect stage to sponsoring companies to grow their brands. In addition to the brand loyalty associated with the game’s ardent fans, the sponsoring helps companies through company and product naming. They mainly use placement during race events and network broadcasts. Monster Energy and Coca-Cola use robust promotion strategies to connect with employees, customers, and fans through the various features of the NASCAR community. The strategies have enabled the companies to stand out as soft drink manufacturing companies in the world. They also help endorse NASCAR to their customers thereby making it a two-way relationship.
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