FedEx lo longer series sponser

[StuiE]

From RPM.espn.com (the address came up from my hotmail browser, so i don't know the proper address)

Friday, October 25

Pook seeking new sponsor
Associated Press


SURFERS PARADISE, Australia -- CART president Chris Pook said Friday that the series has lost its title sponsor for next year and has no plans to merge with Formula One.

Pook, who became president and chief executive officer of the U.S.-based open-wheel series last December, said he was speaking with several companies about replacing FedEx, the series' title sponsor since 1997.

"The relationship was wonderful, they shipped a lot of stuff out of our paddock,'' Pook said of FedEx.

"As a series sponsor, we loved them. But the fact of the matter is in these sort of series, you have to have a series sponsor who activates to the retail market. That was not FedEx's game plan, that was never their game plan.

"I hope they will continue to work with us, but I must say that other freight companies are talking to us pretty rapidly. We need to activate a series sponsor who can reach our retail audience.''


It also said that there were no plans to merge with F1, but noone whants to know about that do they?

Any ideas whay FedEx left?
Can they get a title sponser for 2003?

[JohnSSC]

How do you "activate" a sponsor? Is there a switch or something? Do you have to plug them in first or do they run on their own batteries?

Chris must have taken the Pentagon English Language Equivalency test. Future race schedules will be phrased thusly: "CART is proud to announce that the 2004 CART Championship will display its Assets at the following Automotive-Related Entertainment Focal Points in a sequential fashion. The Synergies brought into play will result in a movement of key Demographic Units to said Focal Points, with additional extra-geographic Demographic Units synergizing via Media Access Points (their television set)."

God save us from linguistic attempts to say short sentences like: "We need a sponsor!" With as many words as possible!

[rush1]

Phillip Morris, Brown & Williamson, Miller, Target, Toyota, Honda, Shell, Motorola and now Fedex - they are all leaving. Maybe theses corporations think CART is dying?

[Bizzo5000]

They never really did anything for CART anyway. Only thing they gave was about $2 million. No advertising, no promotions. No big deal in my book.

[Liz]

Well they did fly the cars to out of country races. That's not cheap.

Who would you like to see as a title sponsor in place of them? What would resonate with the fans? (Personally the ZZ Top Championship Racing Series kind of appeals to me.)

[JohnSSC]

Agreed - it wasn't like it was with PPG (now there was a good sponsor!) with lots of cross-promotional things. The PPG Pace cars were pretty cool and wrapped nicely with PPG's automotive paint dicvision.

Can't recall seeing Fed-Ex doing any advertising - certainly not like some of the UPS ads, for example.

[Tiresmoke]

Originally posted by rush1
Phillip Morris, Brown & Williamson, Miller, Target, Toyota, Honda, Shell, Motorola and now Fedex - they are all leaving. Maybe theses corporations think CART is dying?

It's the economy and all the belt tightening. It hit F1's teams hard last year and still continues to hit them this year. While I'm sure there are some who don't see CART around for the long haul, most of the impact to CART has been from the teams leaving to compete in a less expensive arena where their new budgetary constraints fit better.

Another problem has been government regulation on tobacco, although the racing industry did this to themselves, their link to the tobacco industry has been very beneficial. One tobacco head once said: "Sponsorship is a way for us to introduce glamour and excitement", so it worked for them too. But with many contries' antitobacco laws, its now hard to spend F1 and CART dollars there. In 2000 tobacco marketing exceeded $9.5 Billon worldwide, which is about $25million/day. This is being cut into by government regulations and will continue and everyone knows it, yes, even NASCAR's Winston Cup.

[Liz]

Leaving aside rush1's usual snide remarks which have nothing to do with the subject at hand (as usual), what companies would make the best title sponsors from a marketing perspective? Entertainment? Merchandise? Big Box Stores? Automotive products? Food, Drink and Party Items? What things that are sold and used in every country we are in or want to be in could be proposed title sponsors? Or what company? Fuji Film? Kodak Film? Camera companies? Sunglasses companies? Umbrellas?

Lets be creative here.

[JohnSSC]

I think the large pharmeceutical companies may be ripe to move in to this sort of market. The most obvious example is the NASCAR sponsorship by the makers of Viagra. Drug companies have found that patients will demand their product (whether it is needed or not) when it is effectively marketed. Currently Lilly sponsors C. Fittipaldi in CART and the makers of Allegra, Sarah Fischer in IRL. May be something that can be built upon further.

[macdaddy]

Ford?

But I like Liz' "ZZ Top Championship Racing Series."

[Jordi]

Ford would be killer as a sponsor. Or some of its brands.

Ford Championship Series. That would be a good explanation altogether. Ford powered cars.

But who knows? At least, we have had a sponsor since forever, not like the other championship.

[Liz]

Think of the adverts for the ZZ Top Championship Series! They could even be there to say "Gentlemen Start Your Engines" and people could dress up like them to come to the races. There could be contests that would give really good prizes for the people who looked the most like ZZ Top. People could bring their kids all dressed up; Fridays could be "ZZ Top Days" and anyone who came dressed like ZZ Top could get something special, like a discount or a seat in a special GA grandstand that would have a catchy name like "TopLand" and people would fight for the top row which would be row "ZZ".

And I just came up with those as I was writing them. Surely people who make $1,000,000 a year to do ad campaigns could come up with stuff at least that creative.

They could make a Champ Car song that would be as popular and recognisable as the theme music to "Hockey Night in Canada". They could have giveaways "sit in with ZZ Top at Miami Jam!" Kenny Brack and Patrick Carpentier and them could jam with them at Cart Friday Night.

[macdaddy]

Loved your ideas, Liz, right up until the part about Kenny and Pat.
(ZZ's my favourite band)
By-the-way, I watched Frank Beard, the drummer, race in the Neon Celebrity Challenge on Belle Isle one year.

[greg.n]

Yeah ZZ Top sounds excellent and its not that expensive. FedEx ran to about 4 million a yearr from what I heard, not a huge amount but not as much as PPG spent. Yes the economy is contracting and with the IRL becoming Mr Expensive (7.5 million if you get FREE engines per car). It is not inconcievable a band or record company could do it especially as the street party atmosphere could be used to create some great concerts etc.

[Liz]

I wonder if Pook has thought of this? Even if a couple of bands got together and one did the East and one did the West (and the Australians and Brits could get one of their bands to be the Title Sponsor for their own race), it seems to me they could do a great job of promoting the teams.

I didn't realise the ZZ Top drummer also races. Even better.

What's Pook's e-mail addy?

[DMC]

Hmmm the Vines 300 at Surfers Paradise..... intruiging.

[Crash Test]

Apparently there was a chance of the Australian round being sponsored by Fosters, wait and see.

Whatever happened to all of the beer sponsorship in CART?

[macdaddy]

Budweiser, Miller, Molson... That's a great question, Crash. You'd think that, besides the tobacco industry, the breweries would be hell-bent on sponsoring a series like CART. The demographics are spot-on.

The same question can be asked regarding the petroleum industry.

I'll talk to my boss tomorrow. How does the "Maple City Bakery Championship Series" sound? Bet I could get all of us great tickets!

[greg.n]

Speaking of the petroleum industry I heard today that shell has "leased the Havoline brand from Chevron (who bought Texaco). That might explain why they curtailed the Rahal sponsorship. If havoline is their market leader in 'performance oil' it makes marketing sense to concentrate on promoting that line, after all F1 (Ferrari) is their other marketing tool in thr rest of the world. I still think that "the ZZ Top World Series presented by FedEx" is a great idea.

[macdaddy]

"She don't love me, she loves my automobile"

"You want to race? If you insist. At that price I can't resist!"

[Liz]

So how can I write to Mr. Pook? Time for another Ten-Tenths Official Letter?

[Tailwind]

I think BP (British Petroleum) should get into Champ Cars. We have them here in the U.S. From what I've seen they are mostly in the Southeastern part of the country, but they may be in other areas that I haven't seen. I'm sure they are looking to expand in this market. CART would be a great vehicle for that. Considering the name, I can only assume that they are big in the U.K. I don't know where else in the world they might be.

[brightline]

As far as Miller goes they are part of the philip moris family of brands which includes Marlboro (penske IRL) and now Miller only wants to sponsor a car at Indy. coincidence?

As for BP they are now merged with or bought by Amoco so that about covers the entire US with gas stations.

With CART being such a high tech series why not try and get more high tech companies for a series sponsor and car sponsors. I can see it now. The Zenith HD CART Championship. See all the action in High Definition. Maybe the Pentium 4 Championship. The fastest chip powering the fastest racing series.

Also, kind of going back to the music sponsors why don't musics major labels sponsor cars and they can change the paint scheme in every market they go to promoting a new album. To use DMC's example for the Australia round would have the car painted like The Vines "Highly Evolved" album cover art. Then in California change it to the week's big release. Just look how much coverage that stupid pink Aerosmith car got for like 2 weeks in the IRL and that was a horrible paint scheme. The marketing possibilites with that would be endless. Artists performing at tracks, national anthems, tons of merchandising, etc. Just look how many people tuned in to watch Britney Spears at Daytona, I bet NASCAR got tons of NEW fans that day.