NASCAR Brands and Sponsors

   Since NASCAR was founded 65 years ago, sponsors have been putting their brands and marketing promotions on the doors, hoods, roofs, and just about anywhere else on every race car on the track. Sponsors learned early on in NASCAR (and other forms of motorsports) that by putting their brands and logos on the cars they brought brand recognition to the fans in the stands and the millions of viewers at home watching on T.V. Just as it was in 1948, it still rings true today, the fans will develop a brand loyalty for the brands on the car of their favorite driver.
   Thirty years ago I became a fan of Dale Earnhardt Sr. when he moved up to the Winston Cup Series, now the present day, Sprint Cup Series. Back then, Dale Sr. had Wrangler Jeans as his primary sponsor, and they stayed with him even when he moved to Richard Childress Racing and Goodwrench became his primary sponsor. Wrangler became an associate sponsor and a primary sponsor of Dale Earnhardt Inc. with which he fielded Grand National, now Nationwide series cars and his own cars in Sprint Cup for his son Dale Jr. and Steve Park. In Dale's early career his car was blue and yellow with the Wrangler logo prominently displayed. Because of this I became brand insistent with Wrangler jeans and have worn them ever since. I find them much more comfortable than Levis and this fact is born out today in their commercials featuring Dale Jr. and other sports stars. Wranglers are cut in U shape which makes them more comfortable to wear than those jeans cut in V shape.

   Today the NASCAR fan base is over 40% women and advertising managers and their marketing mixes are targeting this segment of the market. Over the years many products, from beer to laundry detergent have been sponsors for NASCAR teams and this has helped to promote brand loyalty among the female fan base of NASCAR. So much so, that specific driver paraphernalia is marketed directly towards the female fan base.
   As the economy improves more companies will find that one of the best bang's for their marketing buck will be in NASCAR and the brand loyalty that will be garnered by sponsoring a car on the track.

Kikkoman- soy sause- Perfection-Seasoning

I choose this video for a few reasons, I am working toward a career in Culinary Arts, so naturally this commercial caught my eye, because it is associated with food. Second, this commercial was very visually appealing and really caught my eye. The flow of this commercial was extremely smooth, it took simply soy sauce and made it really appealing by showing all the different, unexpected things created with soy sauce. It made it seem glorified, rather then the thought of just a small packet it sauce you get with your carry-out Chinese food.  The target market is not only chefs, and restaurateurs, the two hands that the commercial showed could have been that of a chef, or someone at a restaurant, but I took it as a family, serving up dinner. This commercial also at the end show the viewer that Kikkoman has been around and recognized for 300 years with shows brand recognition. It draws in the viewer visual appeal, it gets the viewer to believe that this soy sauce is a need, look at how beautiful and yummy your food will be if you use Kikkoman. Like I mentioned before, that isn't just one target market for this product. This commercial also is using mass selling, communicating to large numbers of potential customers at the same time. Overall, I think that Kikkoman did a nice job drawing you into this commercial with visual appeal, fresh, clean, clear,endless options. They really changed my attitude toward their product. I don't only have to use soy sauce for Chinese, or foreign foods. It opened the door to new options for the product which can draw in new customers.

Well DAMN.

(I thought)

It’s happening. I mean it’s HAPPENED. They finally did it. Just like depicted in the classics we all know: The Jetson’s, The Power Rangers, Inspector Gadget, Predator, and Star Trek…

“Now your ordinary tasks become extraordinary” with the Samsung Galaxy Gear. Dropping mid-2013, this ‘not-so-regular’ 4-gigabyte timepiece was introduced into Samsung’s Galaxy family. In-sync to the Galaxy Note III (amongst other Galaxy devices), this piece sets some VERY high standards for others in their league – Sony SmartWatch 2 and The Pebble.

It definitely took long enough, but who would have THUNK it?! Thanks to Samsung, you may now have the REAL luxury of technology at the swipe of the wrist – so you thought.

I first seen this commercial and was immediately intrigued! They were able to get my attention – hold my interest – arouse my desire, and I was ready to call AT&T for an upgrade to the Galaxy Note III just to have this stupid thing! But the commercial didn’t do ENOUGH for me. I had question that needed answered. And upon seeking those answers, I found that this is in its EARLIEST stages of development and it may take a few more versions & dates before I’m ready to take action on a purchase.

It is NOT to be misunderstood; the main use of this device is to notify you of what’s happening with your phone. You can receive text messages and reply to them using S Voice, but other notifications must be handled on your handheld (send & receiving emails, Facebook/Twitter updates, etc.).This device does replace the use of your handheld – you’ll definitely need it nearby to put use to any of its features. The commercial kind of puts you under the impression that you can just leave your handheld device at home & use this wrist piece instead.

Even though I have an iPhone, I DO believe that Samsung went about having me believe that the right product was available to me at the right place and the right price. But fashion & fad can only get you so far, this commercial lacks SO MUCH information that is imperative for potential buyers to have. The more research that I did into this device the more I believed if I would have taken immediate action after seeing this commercial, I would have experienced some MAJOR dissonance. They TOTALLY forgot what the 3 basic promotion objectives were with this one.

 

Phoning it in

A few years ago, Dominoes came out and admitted what everyone already knew: their pizza was bad. The dough, the sauce, the cheese, all of it. Their brand identity had become cheap, low quality food. To remedy this the CEO of Dominoes, J. Patrick Doyle, appeared in a number of commercials apologizing for their pizza's quality while simultaneously looking surprised at the idea of his company serving bad food. The ads were successful and, along with some well planned deals, brought customers back.

It would appear that Dominoes is trying a similar strategy with their new ad campaign centered on their online ordering service. Unfortunately, where they came off sorry and willing to change in the first set of commercials, they only come off as stupid and incompetent in the latest set. It starts with a Dominoes employee answering the phone to take an order, and from there rapidly descends into chaos. He mishears the name of the customer. He doesn't know how to operate the hold button. He is confused about who is in a tunnel, but is pretty sure it isn't him, though he may not totally rule that out just yet. He even lightheartedly quips that "ordering Dominoes over the phone isn't always that great," suggesting that he is not the only one that skipped phone orientation day at work.

While the commercial does stumble its way towards the point, that ordering online is simple, fast, and convenient, the first half does not replicate the personable company that came clean about their bad recipe.