T
he first NASCAR race Heidi Massey-Bong worked as a sponsorship executive for Shell-Pennzoil was the Daytona 500. Kevin Harvick wound up winning that 2007 race in the No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet.
Heidi
Massey-Bong
SHELL OIL CO.
“I was green as a gourd to NASCAR, and we probably had 400 guests with us that weekend,” Massey-Bong said. “I felt like our year was done. Our metrics, awareness and activation were off the charts. It was very special.”
Massey-Bong may have wondered where she could go from there, but executives at Shell-Pennzoil had no doubt she would take the sponsorship forward. And in the last seven years, she has delivered. She played a pivotal role in shifting Shell-Pennzoil’s sponsorship from Richard Childress Racing to Penske Racing in 2011. The deal did more than just keep Shell in NASCAR: It also turned a consumer-focused sponsorship into a prime business-to-business opportunity. The company’s sponsorship of Penske Racing meant its fuel and oil would be used across the Penske system of more than 310 auto dealerships and 200,000 rental trucks. Done right, it was a sponsorship that could pay for itself.
Massey-Bong has been the key to making that happen. She works with division heads across Shell to make sure the sponsorship fits for its lubricant, retail, fuel and corporate businesses. She pushed the company’s IndyCar Series sponsorship in a new direction in 2013, giving up its support of Indianapolis Motor Speedway in order to sign a title sponsorship for a new event in Houston. She also helped come up with the idea to bring back a yellow paint scheme for the No. 3 car driven by Helio Castroneves. It was the same paint scheme Rick Mears had when he won the Indianapolis 500 in 1984, and Shell brought back vintage attire for the pit crew.
“While moving forward, we always try to make fans understand our past,” Massey-Bong said. “It makes us a trustworthy brand because we’ve been able to continuously prove our product by saying, ‘With our oil, we actually contributed to the win.’”
— Tripp Mickle
