This week in Las Vegas, courtesy of a glitzy press party staged at Roger Penske’s Ferrari dealership inside the luxurious Wynn hotel and casino, NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Kurt Busch is officially making the transition from the guy driving the legendary “Blue Deuce” to the guy in the Shell/Pennzoil yellow “Double Deuce.”
It's not certain that anyone will actually use the name “Double Deuce” to describe Busch’s new ride, but beginning with the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, Busch will be the man behind the wheel of the No. 22 Pennzoil Dodge Charger for Penske Racing.
After four years of sponsoring driver Kevin Harvick at Richard Childress Racing, Shell and its Pennzoil lubricants brand have entered into a multiyear sponsorship deal with Penske Racing’s NASCAR and IndyCar race teams.
Making such a dramatic shift in brand visibility, from one high-profile driver and race team to another between racing seasons means more than just making Busch a new firesuit and buying a few hundred gallons of yellow paint for his Charger.
It takes an army of people, months of planning and endless meetings where details such as the freshening up of the familiar Shell/Pennzoil paint scheme and the design of both Busch’s firesuit and the outside of the team’s race hauler would be addressed.
There is a show-car program to be developed as well as the exploration of branding opportunities at both the Penske race shop in North Carolina and the Penske museum in Scottsdale, Ariz. There were hero cards that had to be designed, along with an entire line of merchandise that needs to be ready for the season opener in Daytona.
The process began immediately after the official announcement of the switch from RCR to Penske was made on April 21.
“Since the deal was announced, we’ve had weekly calls with the Shell team and the agencies involved, beginning in June,” said Jonathan Gibson, Penske Racing’s vice president for marketing and communications. “We sit down and work backwards from Daytona. We look at everything from branding to activation plans to photo shoots to video shoots to hospitality. We have to hit the ground running when we get to Daytona.”
After a season in which Harvick, representing the Shell and Pennzoil brands, was a legitimate contender for the championship, the first question that comes to mind is “Why the switch?”
The answer is simple. It was about business and the financial gain for Shell from the business-to-business interaction with team owner Roger Penske’s vast global enterprises.
“With what Penske Corp. brought to the table for both the Shell and Pennzoil brands, it is a tremendous business opportunity,” said Heidi Massey-Bong, Shell’s senior business adviser for NASCAR sponsorships.
“We are a global organization, and Penske is a global organization. And with that, it marries itself up quite nicely. They are in the business of selling cars and truck services, and we are in the business of providing gasoline and lubricants to people. That’s two of the things that Penske Corp. spends the majority of its money on. It’s a beautiful match.”
Business-to-business relationships are a key component to today’s NASCAR sponsorship agreements. Corporate financial commitments to race teams, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, have to be tied to a definitive return on investment in order to be successful. Just having a company name on the side of a race car is no longer the way the game is played.
And it’s not only the potential for business-to-business dealings between the corporate sponsorship partner and the race team that is attractive. More often than not, it’s the potential for business between one or more of the team’s existing corporate partners that can be the basis for a new relationship.
“Everyone had come to realize the business benefits, when it comes to Penske, that simply don’t exist anywhere else,” said Todd Stonis, general manager for Sport Dimensions, Inc., the agency responsible for Shell’s domestic motorsports interests for more than two decades. “The change wasn’t due to personality or performance. The business opportunities are so substantial and provide an immediate return on investment for the sponsorship that could just not be ignored.”
The seeds of change were planted months earlier when former Penske partner ExxonMobil announced a change in its marketing strategy. This created a gap, not only in terms of the financial support offered by the oil giant but also in the technical alliance that included the development of lubricants designed for use in both racing and consumer vehicles.
What happened next was an introduction to Shell by way of Penske’s relationship with Chrysler, which is owned in part by Italian manufacturing conglomerate Fiat, which has Shell as its European oil partner.
At the same time this was taking place, Penske’s agreement with longtime sponsor Miller Brewing Company was coming up for renewal. This presented a unique opportunity, according to Penske’s Gibson.
“Miller said we really like Kurt, but what about Brad (Keselowski)?” Gibson said. “We said that he’s a young, up-and-coming driver. (At the same time) Shell said they really had an interest in a championship driver, like Kurt. If Miller wanted to stay with Kurt, that was their choice, but they saw a huge opportunity with Brad. They really thought Brad was identified with who their consumer was – young and aggressive. They saw him as a future star in the sport.
“From there, it seems that everything just fell into place.”
Still, regardless of the circumstances that led to the change, the question remains: How do you convince the ultra-loyal NASCAR fan base that you’ve not abandoned one of the sports more respected and revered team owners?
“Richard (Childress) couldn’t have been any more understanding,” said Massey-Bong, who described the attitude with everyone at RCR as ‘extremely cordial.’
“He recognized that there were opportunities with Penske that were just too hard to ignore.”
Sport Dimension’s Stonis admits that Harvick’s success this past season has been bittersweet. However, it has invigorated the brand both with the fans and within the Shell corporate environment. He says that despite the challenges that confronted Shell and his agency, it was a win-win situation.
“Kevin’s success for the brand has been a big launching point,” Stonis said. “Couple that with the shift to Penske, a new paint scheme, a new driver and some IndyCar assets.”
He refers to Penske’s IndyCar teams, which will also benefit from the team’s new association with Shell and Pennzoil. Penske driver Helio Castroneves will be sponsored by the Shell V Power (gasoline) brand in the IZOD IndyCar Series for the 2011 season.
The biggest challenge to winning over loyalties may come from within the Shell/Pennzoil corporate walls, where the job of converting employees who became RCR and Harvick fans into Penske and Busch fans becomes a daunting task.
“We’ve done a good job with our employees as many of them are passionate race fans,” Massey-Bong said. “We got them to throw their weight behind RCR and Harvick, and we now have to say, ‘I know you did that, but we’ve made this change and I need you to trust us.’”
Along with the official unveiling of the new paint scheme for the No. 22 car in Las Vegas, Shell/Pennzoil will roll out a new Website this week that features Busch and Penske, as well as a marketing campaign.
“I don’t want to minimize that the reason we are with Penske is motorsports,” Massey-Bong said. “First and foremost we are here to win. We are here to provide them with the kind of support to make that happen. We’ll work with them on technology on their lubricants products and hopefully there is a competitive advantage to our products.
“That is the essence (of) why we are here. And oh, by the way, we get all the B2B (business-to-business).”
