Speedway Officials Ready For Mass Marketing Push Touting Daytona Rising Project

With Daytona Int'l Speedway officials "ready to receive a certificate of occupancy" tomorrow for the Daytona Rising project, the advertising push to "put fans into more than 100,000 grandstand seats is about to shift into high gear," according to Jim Abbott of the Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL. DIS President Joie Chitwood III: "We started our campaign earlier than we ever have. We ran some of the marketing after the Coke Zero this past summer. You’ll see it more significantly in the next couple of weeks.” Abbott noted the campaign created by Jump Co., St. Louis, "blends the Speedway’s history with the milestone debut of the new Daytona Rising under the catchphrase '31 million pounds of steel resting on the shoulders of legends.'” It departs from the Speedway’s "typical focus on past and current NASCAR champions to put the new racing stadium in the spotlight, too." Chitwood said that the Daytona Rising marketing effort "focuses on the southeast with additional targeted outreach to a few selected markets." He added that it "doesn’t extend into top national markets" such as N.Y. or L.A. Chitwood: "We focus on what’s cost-effective in the Southeast. A national advertising campaign, you can’t really judge the success of it.” Chitwood said that although TV spots will "occasionally air in Central Florida, the in-state emphasis will be on Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa and Southwest Florida." He added that digital promotion "will be focused in the Orlando and Daytona Beach area, targeting the Speedway’s 181,000 Twitter followers and 950,000 Facebook fans." Abbott noted the marketing push "will be supplemented by driver appearances in markets outside the southeastern media buy" (Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL, 1/10).