The week before the Coca Cola 600, driver of the No. 45 Coke Zero Dodge, Kyle Petty, made a surprise visit to a few of his fans camping at the Concord campgrounds right near Lowe’s Motor Speedway to ask if any of them wanted to ride around the track a few times with him in his Coke Zero racecar. As you can imagine, many of the fans were ecstatic that their favorite driver offered a ride-along to them, and it was all caught on tape for the Coke Zero promotion. After they agreed to ride-along, each fan was given a Coke Zero T-shirt to wear as a “gift,” or for Coke Zero’s branding image and a cold Coke Zero to quench their thirst. This is one example of marketers thinking outside the box to create one crazy promotion, or probably just to make some random fans day.
Another promotion I got to witness at 8:00 a.m. on a race day was the “Twist, Lick, and Dunk Oreo Contest” sponsored by Greg Biffle’s Double Stuf Oreo Race Team. Driver Greg Biffle was there to judge the contest with five finalists from around the country competing in Victory Lane at Homestead-Miami Speedway earlier this month to determine who the luck licker would be. As the “Official Cookie of NASCAR,” Oreo invited all media members to the early morning competition in hopes they would cover their crazy competition.
Now if the crazy fans and the crazy media go along with these crazy promotions, it is easy to see why the marketers host such wild ideas. But why it is that people would want to offer their face for free advertising, or wake up at the crack of dawn to lick a ton of Oreos is beyond me.
