A Marketing Student’s Observations of the 2005 US Grand Prix
I had the opportunity to travel to Indianapolis, Indiana this past weekend to see the Formula One (F1) cars race in the US Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Other than the race itself (or lack thereof), I was particularly interested in observing the marketing and promotion activities. So here are some notables:
- Ad placement (signs, turf painting, banners, etc.) were positioned for the TV cameras…not for the fans at the race. While the cars were at other locations around the track not visible from our seats, we watched the large television screen positioned in the in-field and all views included advertising behind the car.
- With companies like Allianz, RBS and Orange advertising in Indianapolis, clearly Americans were not the target market.
- Promotional…Foster’s sold beer cans with an F1 logo; Miller beer cans had an Indianapolis Motor Speedway logo. I observed that the average consumer was probably not in a condition to even recognize the presence of this logo.
- Merchandise…I needed to purchase a Red Bull hat, but I wasn’t prepared to pay $45 for one. After shopping around (booths in an area less than an acre), I was also quoted $30 and $35 for the same hat…$30 bucks for a hat?! With the number of middle-aged men lined up to see the Red Bull girls at the kiosk, I suspect they could’ve charged quite a bit more…and still sold plenty of hats.
- Parking…one entrepreneur living in a home across the street from the track charged $10 for parking on Friday…$50 on Saturday…and $100 on Sunday.
- F1 cars do not seem to have the same amount of advertising that a NASCAR car does, as a percentage of surface area.
The race was extremely disappointing due to the fact that only six of twenty cars participated. At this point, the details are still unfolding, but it has no doubt done damage to the sport of Formula One racing. Besides Formula One, the FIA, Michelin and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will be scrambling to recover from this disaster. As an example, on the way out of the track I heard numerous people saying that they would never purchase a Michelin product again.
Unfortunately, I would not be surprised to hear that F1 will not be returning to Indianapolis next year…or even America for that matter.
posted by Curt @ 10:27:00 AM
5 Comments:
some very interesting marketing observations. when i heard about the event (or lack of event) yesterday I felt pretty bad knowing you had flown there. an F1 event should be a lifetime event!
What's worse is that we ended up driving! We had some trouble with a fuel pump prior to departure and we weren't able to get the airplane repaired by Friday morning. I'm hooked on F1 now, those cars are amazing.
While F1 struggles to compete in the US market place, it seems that CHAMP CAR is capitalizing by offering to honor F1 US Grand Prix tickets at their upcoming June 26 race in Cleveland, Ohio. Nice move, too bad I already have plans for this Sunday.
Yah, OK, ah....having been reading the fallout over the last few days, I think the true impact will be staggering. You mentioned the advertising wasn't necessarily "geared" toward the US crowd, however, consider the millions of viewers worldwide that may be consumers. How many of them turned off their televisions? I read this morning that not only is the FIA considering financial penalties against the teams and Michelin, but the individual team sponsors may seak financial damages from the teams.
Yeah...okay..sure...you make some solid points anonymous. I suspect that many people around the world turned the TV off shortly after the start of the race...at that point it was only a matter of which Ferrari car crossed the finish line first. Of course, I'm sure that a couple stayed to the end out of curiousity.
As one BBC radio reported commented, this is a big black eye for Formula One.
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