Our weekend was dedicated to working with Robby and his team drive awareness for Spot. Spot has a great product whose target market nicely fits with the demographics of the NASCAR fan. Robby clearly sees the larger opportunity with Spot, and is very interested in seeing the product succeed. Robby was personally very involved in helping shape the Bristol opportunity for Spot and took an active role in making sure we received all the proper attention and "assets" necessary for a longer term marketing program.
The challenge for Mojo and Spot was the very short runway we had to prepare our activation programs (less than a week!). Whenever we're faced with limited time and/or resources, we narrow our focus and make sure we do a few things really well. This weekend was no exception, and we decided to focus our efforts in a few key areas -- PR, online activities, social networking, and a few well placed ads. Spot has a small but effective marketing team, and we're able to partner with them and their advertising and PR agencies in quickly developing an integrated and focused plan.
One of the appealing things about Robby is his fan base and appeal across a variety of motorsports segments. He's not only a good NASCAR driver, but an excellent off road driver and the current leader in the SCORE Desert Racing Series (SCORE produces the infamous Baja 500 and Baja 1000 races among others. Check out http://www.score-international.com/). Robby has a very cool fan site called PlanetRobby(http://www.planetrobby.com/), and we were able to work with them and RobbyGordon.com (http://www.robbygordon.com/) to leverage our social media activities including Twitter, Facebook, various blogs and other tools.
The proliferation and adoption of social networking is really changing the landscape for how companies and brands communicate, and this weekend was a proof point for how social networking can really help create and drive impressions, awareness and familiarity.
So in addition to being Twittering fools all weekend long, on Saturday night we took one of Robby's golf carts out into the campground surrounding the Speedway. It was CRAZY. RV's, camp fires, mechanical bulls, and line dancing under a disco ball over a gravel dance floor greeted us as we made our journey through the land of the NASCAR fan. If any of you have been to a NASCAR race, you know how passionate and committed the NASCAR fans are -- and let me tell you, the fans at Bristol are some of the best.
We woke up early Sunday morning and made our way to BMS, hoping to arrive before the other 160,000 folks. We had a full day of activities ahead of us -- meeting with the owners of the track (SMI), attending an autograph session with Robby at his merchandise hauler, going to the driver's meeting where Tom Colby was introduced as one of the VIPs, then heading down to the start/finish line for driver introductions, national anthem and "Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!"
Robby had a good race and finished in the top half of the sheet. Although I know he wants to improve, being a single car team owner and driver is tough sledding in NASCAR and Robby should be proud of his results. We're proud of our association with Robby Gordon and Spot, and look forward to more cool and successful activation programs.
That's all for now. Back at ya later.
Mojo
