QOTD: Does Motorsport Hold Any Pursestrings?
“Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” For years, this was the missive put forth by race teams and gearheads within the bowels of OEMs who were looking for a slice of the budget. It worked for a time, especially in the halcyon days of the 1960s and ’70s.
Is it the same today? I’m not so sure.
Even in more recent years, after teams figured out they could turn their cars into rolling billboards, a good many consumers bought goods because they sponsored a particular driver … or refused to buy a product because they sponsored a particular driver. I’ll freely cop to falling in this particular trap; when a certain driver for whom I had little affection was sponsored by Pepsi, I refused to buy it anymore, instead switching to Coke products.
This decision, naturally, developed my taste buds in favor of a soft drink from a red can — a purchasing pattern that continues to this day. Twenty-five years of buying Coca-Cola whenever I reach for a soda originated from a sponsorship decision in the early ’90s made by people I’ve never met. No one has ever accused me of being a wholly logical human being.
How about you? Has the motorsports marketing machine ever influenced any of your buying decisions?
[Image: Wikipedia ( CC BY-SA 3.0)]
Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.
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The motorsports I would like to watch are hard to spectate. I can go to the SCCA runoffs at Road America but it is difficult to find the races with production DNA in them.
I'll go against the grain and say that I'd much rather watch loud, purpose-built race cars in NASCAR over seeing a showroom Fusion 2.0T or Impala 3.6L or Ridgeline go around a tri-oval. Even when NASCAR was running 'stock cars' they weren't tossing out a 352 Galaxie or a regular gas Catalina.
I don't think that sponsorships influence me, but I will admit that whenever I reach for a cheap beer, I always go for Miller High Life* because of a line by the Mayor from "Do the Right Thing." *The champagne of beers
"Has the motorsports marketing machine ever influenced any of your buying decisions?" No, because that would require me to watch motorsports first.