94 replies to this topic

[917]

AM,

you can find more about Arturo in the "Unusual sponsors" thread:
http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=36218
(unfortunately most picture links are no longer working)

[lanciaman]

Racing's First Principle is to use somebody else's money. There are plenty of very well off fellows who will park their team before they open their own checkbooks very wide. But if you are well-heeled, you will have access to companies and directors that are likewise.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by RTH


The MG's did win races last year , and those girls have sold tens of millions of records.

Yeah, but not that pair of MGs, IIRC - the Atomic Kitten cars were a "B team" effectively with a couple of youngsters in them.

[dmj]

Newcastle United sponsored Lister also comes to mind, and for some time it looked like it could spring a whole series of racing sponsored by football clubs.

[RTH]

Originally posted by petefenelon


Yeah, but not that pair of MGs, IIRC - the Atomic Kitten cars were a "B team" effectively with a couple of youngsters in them.

Damn, I was hoping you would't notice that ! In my defence they all came out of the WSR factory. I must confess I was disappointed they all did so poorly at Mondello after all the winter hype.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by dmj
Newcastle United sponsored Lister also comes to mind, and for some time it looked like it could spring a whole series of racing sponsored by football clubs.

Ahhhh yes. Premier 1 Grand Prix, may god rest its soul. Are they still threatening to come back?

A bunch of the clubs that were meant to be sponsoring it went off to Dallara-Nissan...


pete

[Rob29]

Originally posted by petefenelon


Ahhhh yes. Premier 1 Grand Prix, may god rest its soul. Are they still threatening to come back?




pete

Don't think they ever arrived in the first place.. They still exist and threaten to arrive next year,but I will believe it when I see it.

[TODave2]

I would suspect the football cash crisis has scuppered the plans. I was never quite sure how the whole thing was going to work - what did the football clubs have to benefit from having their name on the side of a racing car? People aren't going to 'buy' the product (like most sponsorship deals), so I was never quite clear what the thinking was...?

It's not like Liverpool supporters are going to start supporting Man Utd if the Man Utd car starts winning all the races, is it?! I just failed to get my head around the whole concept really

[ian senior]

Originally posted by petefenelon


Ahhhh yes. Premier 1 Grand Prix, may god rest its soul. Are they still threatening to come back?



pete

I hope not. As a football supporter, I'd be hyper-peeved if my club started pouring money into that money pit known as motor racing when they should be spending it on better players. Mind you, there is little chance of Luton Town getting involved, so why should I worry?

[ensign14]

Originally posted by ian senior

Mind you, there is little chance of Luton Town getting involved, so why should I worry?

Well, you could support Vauxhall in the touring cars...

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by TODave2
I would suspect the football cash crisis has scuppered the plans. I was never quite sure how the whole thing was going to work - what did the football clubs have to benefit from having their name on the side of a racing car? People aren't going to 'buy' the product (like most sponsorship deals), so I was never quite clear what the thinking was...?

It's not like Liverpool supporters are going to start supporting Man Utd if the Man Utd car starts winning all the races, is it?! I just failed to get my head around the whole concept really

I don't see the crossover myself. And besides, aren't most of the Schufauxsi Man Utd fans? (you know, the sort that start following a sport and just pick on the winning side with the most merchandise...?)

pete

[canon1753]

I thought it was odd that in 1986-87 Sterlin Marlin was sponsored by "Underalls" which is a woman's underwear firm.

[canon1753]

About Premier 1- Could that end up being the new CART formula?

[lanciaman]

The reasons for many sponsorships are unseen by the naked eye. There doesn't have to be a direct product link for a sponsorship to work. Women watch NASCAR. Underalls makes as much sense as Viagra- it's niche marketing. Building and home improvement product sponsors, for example, have a built-in hospitality machine for entertaining distributors and their customers, and it matters not if they are bona fide race fans: the outing is the thing.

Sponsors are usually advised to spend an additional 3 to 4 times the amount of the actual sponsorship deal on hospitality, backroom promotions, PR and direct team advertising.

[Ross Stonefeld]

I had high hopes for Premier F1 and had hoped it would trickle down so I could drive a Norwich FC Formula Ford

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by canon1753
About Premier 1- Could that end up being the new CART formula?

Doubt it. I doubt it will ever happen in fact. Soccer seems to have peaked, and who'd build the chassis anyway?

Dallara built the "demo" chassis and got chucked out - I'd imagine they're fully occupied with F3 and IRL and their sports car work anyway.
Then Reynard built one and went bust.
Lola... well, do they have the capacity around CART and F3000?
Ralt? Is there any capacity?
IRM (the remains of Reynard?) Hmmm... who owns the rights to the design that was going to be used?


As for future CART - Pook has spoken, it'll eventually be N/A 3.0l V10s. Whether they're F1-like or not I don't know (things like petrol vs methanol come to mind...), but bear in mind that move will probably only take place after the F1 one-engine-per-weekend rules start and there might be some spare capacity....


pete

[theunions]

Originally posted by canon1753
I thought it was odd that in 1986-87 Sterlin Marlin was sponsored by "Underalls" which is a woman's underwear firm.

Not really odd, as this was around the time NASCAR began officially acknowledging how much of their audience actually consisted of women.

[Alan Lewis]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
I had high hopes for Premier F1 and had hoped it would trickle down so I could drive a Norwich FC Formula Ford

Norwich City? You glory hunter.

I'm hanging on for the Kidderminster Harriers one make saloons (Wartburgs if Saturday's result was anything to go by).

APL

[Ross Stonefeld]

Pfffft id heard of them before they started winning games

[Anorak Man]

It's not so surprising to see knicker and grundie manufacturers sponsoring F1 now that The Wooley-Pullie makers have paved the way eh? (Benetton)

But surely 'Gortex' are missing out big-time, I'll have to give them a call, if Niki's not beaten me to it.

AM

[TODave2]

Originally posted by lanciaman
The reasons for many sponsorships are unseen by the naked eye. There doesn't have to be a direct product link for a sponsorship to work. Women watch NASCAR. Underalls makes as much sense as Viagra- it's niche marketing. Building and home improvement product sponsors, for example, have a built-in hospitality machine for entertaining distributors and their customers, and it matters not if they are bona fide race fans: the outing is the thing.

Yes, that's true of course, but you have to wonder about the football connection though. They can already offer a day out at a premiership match. While I accept that they may have some people who prefer racing to footie and they could be entertained at the racing, it still means that they are ultimately asking for investment in the footie club, and if they aren't interested in the footie are they going to open their wallets...?

I dunno... just all seems rather odd to me. I suppose they could say 'Well, anyone who's interested in the club would have already invested, so let's see if we can open up investment opportunities via other sports'.

That would make sense, but I wouldn't personally invest in a team that played a sport I wasn't interested in.

(*whisper* like cricket for example... yawn)

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by lanciaman
The reasons for many sponsorships are unseen by the naked eye. There doesn't have to be a direct product link for a sponsorship to work....

Very true...

AJCL sponsored John Smith and Andrew Miedecke in smallbore openwheelers in the seventies. How many business executives who had the need for container services were in the audience, either at the circuit or the TV audience?

Didn't matter... the company used it as an opportunity to wine and dine those few prospective clients they took along to spend the day with the team!

Smithy also had Mr Juicy at one stage... a retail juice product, for sure, seen by thousands who might have been receiving some 'brand reinforcement' as they watched him dive deep under Brian Shead and Peter Macrow into the stop corner at Amaroo.

But behind the scenes there was a high level of staff morale-boosting going on, the Mr Juicy distributors were caught up in it all and enthused by the involvement. I think some of them also had outings to the circuit to spend the day with the team, perhaps involving sales contests... I'm not totally aux fait with the details, but there was more to it than simply boosting brand awareness.

[lanciaman]

I worked in motorsports programs for Pirelli, Budweiser and their brands, and Pepsi, and others, and the secret to sponsorship in all was finding a corporate authority that had a passion for racing. Most other considerations became irrelevant...as long as some progress in sales and accountabilty was dialed in. The Marlboro USAC sponsorship was a classic case in failing to account for success: when I asked the managers what happened after one year, when the program was scuttled, their anwer was "everybody got racing jackets and tickets and pit passes," but also "nobody counted the boxes," which meant no one kept track of incremental sales increases attributed to racing.

I was involved with Don Prudhomme's sponsorship by the US Army, and they had the mechanism to record enlistments attributable to motorsports exposure to a target audience.

A corporate guru in motorsport is essential, but some sales successes must be quantified.

[Ross Stonefeld]

I work for a current NASCAR team and last year we had a sponsor for a partial season (our previous sponsor went tits up) and even though we gave them amazing advertising values and even generated new business the new lady in charge was a Jeff Gordon fan and didnt re-up. A bit weird really.

We currently are backed by a branch of the National Service and since the sponsorship started recruiting is up 16% across the board. Granted some of that is a result of the Iraq conflict, but at the same time it would have turned some potential recruits away. They seem to be waffling on the second half of the season though, dealing with the government is like Elephants mating. Lots of noise, lots of pain, and no results for about 2 years. Though we did manage to avoid the plague of the bidding process.

[lanciaman]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
We currently are backed by a branch of the National Service and since the sponsorship started recruiting is up 16% across the board. Granted some of that is a result of the Iraq conflict, but at the same time it would have turned some potential recruits away. They seem to be waffling on the second half of the season though, dealing with the government is like Elephants mating. Lots of noise, lots of pain, and no results for about 2 years. Though we did manage to avoid the plague of the bidding process.

Well, dealing with the military is difficult, but US services have been hugely successful in sponsoring motorsports, though most successful, it seems, in drag racing. Drag racing has more target age bracket hands-on racers and fans than other racing venues, it seems. The Army's sponsorship of Prudhomme was very successful during the post VietNam non-draft era. Go figure.
The success was largely due to localization of racing events-- taking advantage of Don's appearance in a particular area and having the local recruiters turn out lots of local bodies/prospects.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Ours is built around a *massive* show car program. For every Winston Cup weekend we have 2 show cars somewhere in the area every day Tuesday-Sunday.

[BS Levy]

Well, it may not be art, but DUREX GOSSAMER comes very close to the TRUE meaning of "British Racing Green", doesn't it????
Although, as always with the Brits, the problem is chosing the appropriate hole....

[lanciaman]

Originally posted by BS Levy
Well, it may not be art, but DUREX GOSSAMER comes very close to the TRUE meaning of "British Racing Green", doesn't it????
Although, as always with the Brits, the problem is chosing the appropriate hole....

It's good to keep your options open.

[TODave2]

I'm totally lost now...

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by Ray Bell


Smithy also had Mr Juicy at one stage... a retail juice product, for sure, seen by thousands who might have been receiving some 'brand reinforcement' as they watched him dive deep under Brian Shead and Peter Macrow into the stop corner at Amaroo.

The "Mr Juicy" brand was seen quite a lot at Macau in both the Guia and F3 races too, along with Watson's Water...

pete

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by BS Levy
Well, it may not be art, but DUREX GOSSAMER comes very close to the TRUE meaning of "British Racing Green", doesn't it????
Although, as always with the Brits, the problem is chosing the appropriate hole....

This reminds me of the Femfresh Lola.

"Femfresh" was a "Intimate feminine deodorant" - very 1970s.

PdeRL

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by TODave2
I'm totally lost now...

Good way to be when that kind of talk's going on...

[Anorak Man]

Our Ray comments astutely;

But behind the scenes there was a high level of staff morale-boosting going on, the Mr Juicy distributors were caught up in it all and enthused by the involvement. I think some of them also had outings to the circuit to spend the day with the team, perhaps involving sales contests... I'm not totally aux fait with the details, but there was more to it than simply boosting brand awareness.

This is an interesting aspect of sponsorship links, and marketing tactics. No doubt the Advertising Johnnies study it intensely at 'Sellers University'. Like most people, I'd appreciate it if they would just stop breathing for a day or two, the world would be a much better place. Imagine, no Britney Spears, no fag ads, no SPAM!

Along the line Ray mentions, I recall being wooed as a vet student by the big drug companies. They'd regularly take us all to the flashest hostelries, and pay the week-end bar-bill. Quite an investment for 40 vet students. No hard sell, often not even a token product display. Just, 'Here's the trough and nose-bags, get stuck in!'

I used to wonder naively, "Why do they spend all this dosh with no obvious return."

Then once in practice, at the helter-skelter pace of work, you daily have to make a snap decision, such as, which cattle or equine prostaglandin or anthelmintic are you going to use/order/ask the boss for/recommend. And BINGO, a rosy glow would suddenly be associated with a certain product name, and out it would shoot from your lips. Almost involuntary.

Quite alarming really.

Goebels and Himmler used it, American NWO politicians perfected it, we suffer it.
Olive-skinned non-Americans ... they pay for it with their lives.


AM

[Ross Stonefeld]

Its all but disallowed now. My dad is in the drug rep biz and they cant schmooze people anymore.


So for Eli Lilly, at Newman-Haas in CART they dont yet have their drug approved, and cant bring doctors to the races for hospitality. Hell of a deal

[Quixotic]

CAPT Peter Jansson, in the 70s, when the powers that be in Touring Cars in Australia banned sponsors names across the top of the windscreens, and only allowed drivers names to be placed there, had a unique way to give his sponsors coverage.

He changed his name to N.G.K. Plugs by Deed Poll.

So for the Bathurst race that year he was able to legally have his sponsors name where no other team was allowed to.

A very odd man was the Captain.....

[jimjimjeroo]

Surprised the Bin Laden Williams tie up hasn't been mentioned...

[Lee Nicolle]

CAPT Peter Jansson, in the 70s, when the powers that be in Touring Cars in Australia banned sponsors names across the top of the windscreens, and only allowed drivers names to be placed there, had a unique way to give his sponsors coverage.

He changed his name to N.G.K. Plugs by Deed Poll.

So for the Bathurst race that year he was able to legally have his sponsors name where no other team was allowed to.

A very odd man was the Captain.....

N G K Janson was his name that year.

[Quixotic]

N G K Janson was his name that year.

Ahhhhh that's right....... I remember the furore at the time......

[Amphicar]

One of the most inappropriate sponsors nay owners of a Formula 1 team must be Eifelland Caravans - a short-lived German outfit from the 1970s. They ran a March 721 with bizarre new bodywork by Berlin born designer Luigi Colani, whose design philosophy was:

"The earth is round, all the heavenly bodies are round; they all move on round or elliptical orbits. This same image of circular globe-shaped mini worlds orbiting around each other follows us right down to the microcosmos. We are even aroused by round forms in species propagation related eroticism. Why should I join the straying mass who want to make everything angular? I am going to pursue Galileo Galilei's philosophy: my world is also round.”

On hearing of the project Denis Jenkinson commented: “The Eifelland caravan firm of Germany are continuing to support Rolf Stommelen and have a new March that will be thinly disguised to look like something else, though not a caravan I hope.”

It didn’t look like a caravan – but not much like an F1 car either
See Thursday 24 April entry

[Quixotic]

One of the most inappropriate sponsors nay owners of a Formula 1 team must be Eifelland Caravans - a short-lived German outfit from the 1970s. They ran a March 721 with bizarre new bodywork by Berlin born designer Luigi Colani, whose design philosophy was:

"The earth is round, all the heavenly bodies are round; they all move on round or elliptical orbits. This same image of circular globe-shaped mini worlds orbiting around each other follows us right down to the microcosmos. We are even aroused by round forms in species propagation related eroticism. Why should I join the straying mass who want to make everything angular? I am going to pursue Galileo Galilei's philosophy: my world is also round.”

On hearing of the project Denis Jenkinson commented: “The Eifelland caravan firm of Germany are continuing to support Rolf Stommelen and have a new March that will be thinly disguised to look like something else, though not a caravan I hope.”

It didn’t look like a caravan – but not much like an F1 car either
See Thursday 24 April entry

W?as this the ugly car that looked like a flattened Jellybean, and had a centrally mounded pylon, (right in the drivers line of sight), for the rear vision mirror

[D-Type]

W?as this the ugly car that looked like a flattened Jellybean, and had a centrally mounded pylon, (right in the drivers line of sight), for the rear vision mirror

Why don't you follow the link that Amphicar gave and see for yourself?

[Amphicar]

W?as this the ugly car that looked like a flattened Jellybean, and had a centrally mounded pylon, (right in the drivers line of sight), for the rear vision mirror

Yes that's the one - follow the link in my OP and you'll find a grainy b&w photo of it in its full horror. Most of the Colani "improvements" were soon abandoned but they quixotically persisted with the periscope mirror - proud German U-Boat history perhaps?

[arttidesco]

W?as this the ugly car that looked like a flattened Jellybean, and had a centrally mounded pylon, (right in the drivers line of sight), for the rear vision mirror

Amazingly the central pillar for the mirror stayed on right until the end of the Eifelland project !

Edited by arttidesco, 18 December 2010 - 22:43.

[Quixotic]

Amazingly the central pillar for the mirror stayed on right until the end of the Eifelland project !

Did not Rolf once say that he would not drive the car flat out for fear of his head hitting that pylon in a crash....... or am I imagining that?

[Graham Clayton]

Ah yes the Prince and his t-minus "brand" that was going to generate so much money

Wasn't the Prince involved with discussions with the ill-fated Dome F-105 F1 team as well?