Am"busch" Marketing

You are probably rolling your eyes and saying, here we go again, another story from NASCAR girl, but I could not resist since it is a marketing course and one thing that NASCAR sponsors do well is ambush marketing.
Sponsors drive head to head every week not only in the marketplace as competitors but also on the hoods of racecars challenging each other on the track. In the NASCAR world, ambush marketing is extremely easy because many sponsors contradict others because their most fierce competitors also have the same or a greater presence on the raceday. Some corporations sponsor a racecar(s), other the race themselves, and others are named an official product of NASCAR. There are a select few that choose to do all three.

For example, Coke has the Coca-Cola Racing Family which consists of driver Greg Biffle, Bobby Labonte, Kyle Petty, Carl Edwards, Michael Waltrip, Jeff Burton, Jamie McMurray, Tony Stewart, Dale Jarrett, Elliott Sadler, Denny Hamlin, Mark Martin, and Kevin Harvick. They also sponsor the Kyle Petty Coke Zero Car, and of course the Coca-Cola 600. Coke is also the Official Soft Drink of NASCAR. But what happens when Pepsi is slid into the mix? What happens when a track like Phoenix International Raceway announces the tracks Official Soft Drink Sponsor is Pepsi-Cola? Or when a driver like Jeff Gordon wins the Coca-Cola 600 and wants to drink Pepsi in the Coca-Cola Victory Lane? It seems like all this marketing would end up cancelling each other out.

If sports fans were asked the question, “What is the Official Beer of NASCAR?” you would get a variety of answers. You have drivers like Kurt Busch who drives the No. 2 Miller Lite car (ironic I know!) and David Stremme in the Coors Light Car. Then you have the most popular driver, Dale Jr. with Budweiser branded all over him and his car. Then you have the Busch Series, which is the second tier NASCAR series, obviously sponsored by Anheuser-Busch. But surprisingly the Official Beer of NASCAR for the 2008 season is now Coors Light for a $20 million deal.

The main question I am asking is does it really matter if you are the “main sponsor” in NASCAR if you have all these other sponsors and competitors overshadowing your brand anyways? NASCAR is so cluttered with brands, logos, promotions, signage, and sponsorships that it is difficult to make sense of it all and I wonder how effective it must really be that they continue to do it.