| For many, Friday night at the drags is a perfect night out and for clever aftermarket sponsors it’s a perfect way to cash in.
So you’ve got a great product but few in the aftermarket know about it yet. Your sales are on track but how do you take the leap that takes you from new kid on the block to household name
Having taken 60 of his team to Western Sydney Raceway to enjoy the heart pounding action of Top Fuel, Fuchs managing director Wayne Hoiles believes adding motor sport sponsorship to the specialist lubricant’s marketing mix has help take their brand to a whole new level in the trade.
Starting off small, spending 20 per cent of a small budget on sponsorship, Fuchs entered into the world of V8 Supercars six years ago. In 2005, Fuchs found a new niche that is also fanatical about their market but in a motor sport where they could have a greater presence. It came in the form of Top Fuel racing and the company is now spending close to 70 per cent on sponsorship of a much larger marketing budget, however Hoiles admits there was some initial opposition towards sponsorship from above.
“It was difficult at first to convince management to start doing the promotional program. “But I could see that it was an opportunity for us to be an important player..”
In the end, Hoiles believes the proof is in the pudding. Once Fuchs was able to prove sponsorship could increase their sales, it was then easier to understand the process.
“We found Top Fuel effective because it appeals to a technically minded audience - guys who love knowing what’s going on under the bonnet,” he says. “There is a fanatical fan base going to the track which has done more on our bottom line that we ever could have imagined. Combine that with a great race team, quality products and a great support network and then you have yourself a successful business and in our case – a very successful business.”
In the adjacent corporate box to the Fuchs team, Auto One general manager Alex Bowler is having dinner with clients Meguiars and Kitten, together with a group of 20 workshop mechanics.
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The group are being wined and dined in thanks for their support and loyalty to the Auto One stores.
“The behind the scenes look at how the car is assembled is very much of interests to our guests,” Bowler says.
“To see an 8,000 horse power engine completely stripped down and rebuilt in under 80 minutes is a mind altering experience.”
Bowler says the cost of being able to offer the experience of seeing Auto One’s two cars race down the quarter mile equates to more than $300 a head - but it’s money well spent.
“We get a visual presence here at the track with the Auto One burn out pad, signage on the quarter mile as well as the cars,” he says.
“These are all visual reminders of our brand to our target market and reinforces that Auto One are important players in this industry.”
Canberra-based sponsorship company DBC are well aware of the importance of visual reminders and how they can affect a company’s bottom line.
“As automotive aftermarket companies look for more creative ways to expedite their brand, more and more are looking towards motor sport to do that,” DBC’s Dale Brittain says.
“There’s a lot of copycat and me too behaviour out there but there are some original thinkers left in the aftermarket.”
Brittain says the single biggest mistake sponsors make is not integrating their sponsorship into their marketing mix, treating sponsorship as a peripheral and in turn achieving peripheral results.
“Sponsorship needs to be treated like any other marketing activity and selecting the right sport for your brand is important,” Brittain says.
“Drag racing has a fan base that’s very loyal, 83 three percent of drag racing fans support the product that are marketed on the cars, which can make a huge overall impact to your brand.”
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