Sponsorship 101, Racing cars that don't use the product.

Welcome to the first of my blogs that are designed to tell you something useful and not just waffle on about cheese and the price of toilet paper and whatnot.

Today we are going to talk a little about sponsorship.

What would be the point of sponsoring a car that doesn't actually use the kind of car products a sponsor is trying to sell?

Well, first let’s consider the point of sponsoring a car which does use the company’s product;

A good reason for associating with a car that uses the product would be to showcase the performance of the product in a competition environment. This works very well if your primary audience is the other 20 cars on the grid and you can beat them every weekend until they buy your products. (Then you need to not beat them, but that's another story.)

For the thousands driving to and from races in their BMW 330d, or reading Autosport in traffic jams with their Vectra CDTIs this is less important. A race fan or a car enthusiast will have his attention drawn by any exciting looking, well presented race car, regardless of what oil it uses or what air filter it has. In actual fact, most car aficionados know that components used on a race car are not always suitable for their own car.

 In any form of sponsorship, you are looking for the hook, the leverage to send your message.

The message should be that your company can provide high quality products for your high performance car.

A company that supplies turbos sponsoring a turbocharged car is actually taking a huge risk. If the car under performs on race day, so does the associated product in the eyes of all that are watching. A monumental engine failure may leave a casual fan wondering if it could be caused by a high performance turbo.

No such problem with an atmo car. The message remains the same and can be delivered with equal strength regardless of the cars performance over a race weekend.

In short, the important part of any sponsorship program is the delivering of the sponsor’s message, not the winning and definitely not the type of car holding the logo.

This car is not using 100+ wheels.

***All the crap you see written here is Kelvin's opinion and not that of his associates, race team or marketing partners.***