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Marketing and Sponsorship

Arris makes quick connection with NASCAR

At its core, Arris is about getting people up to speed.

And the telecommunications equipment company has done just that in its first year as a NASCAR sponsor, both on the track with Joe Gibbs Racing and away from the track thanks to a new vending contract with the sanctioning body.

Amid a push by NASCAR to make the sport more tech savvy, Arris has begun supplying the sanctioning body — and, by extension, the sport’s teams — with telecommunications and broadband-related products, including modems, routers, coaxial cable and splitters, according to sources.

The Georgia-based company, which previously had done no sports marketing save for a little golf hospitality, jumped into NASCAR last August and this year is primary sponsor of new JGR driver Carl Edwards for 17 Sprint Cup races as well as primary sponsor for more than half of the season for JGR’s Daniel Suarez in the Xfinity Series. That led to the recent vending relationship with the sanctioning body.

COPPOCK
“Because we’re a technology provider, NASCAR thought that we might be interested in a couple of initiatives they were already working on,” said Ronald Coppock, president of worldwide sales for Arris. “We’re all about high-speed data and video, and there needed, I thought, to be a little more parity in the sport in terms of providing broadband to all the racing teams.”

NASCAR wouldn’t comment directly on the Arris agreement but said in a statement: “The tracks and teams each work with a variety of partners and vendors to help enhance their at-track activities with the end goal of creating a faster, more seamless technology experience.”

Recording $5.3 billion in sales in 2014, Arris is the world’s largest provider of cable TV routing and set-top-box modems. Until recently, though, its advertising focused on business-to-business. But in 2013, the company bought Motorola’s home unit, which included Motorola’s phone and cable groups, from Google for $2.35 billion. Because of the acquisition, the B2B-focused Arris “had to quickly figure out how to build up brand equity,” Coppock said.

The brand also was approached about promoting diversity through sponsorship of Suarez, a Mexican driver, by Carlos Slim Domit, chairman of the Mexican conglomerate Grupo Carso and the son of Carlos Slim, one of the richest men in the world. The elder Slim is chairman and CEO of América Movil, a telecommunications company headquartered in Mexico City that is Arris’ biggest international customer and one of the largest mobile-network operators in the world.

Since Arris has placed a high value on the Latin-American market, it decided to accept the younger Slim’s pitch and back the rookie Suarez.

“We thought it was a pretty interesting idea to be aligned with our largest international customer,” Coppock said. “We didn’t know anything about racing, but we liked the diversity side of it. So those are two points that converged: The need to create brand equity for our retail business, and aligning with our largest customer in international.”

The telecommunications equipment company sponsors driver Daniel Suarez in NASCAR’s Xfinity Series.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
Coppock declined to comment on the company’s overall spend in NASCAR and how much of its marketing budget was being devoted to the sport aside from saying it was “significant.” A source valued the JGR deal in the low eight figures.

For now, Coppock said, the NASCAR deal will be the company’s only foray into sports marketing, though its deep pockets have led “every NFL team” to pitch Arris on a partnership, he added.

Along with the vending contract with NASCAR, Coppock said Arris is “looking at leveraging those relationships within the NASCAR family on a number of our business initiatives,” specifically with shipping and logistics companies because it already “spends millions and millions and millions of dollars” for those types of services.

“You can imagine us talking to people about supply chains, etc., services provided by some of the other sponsors,” he said. “We’re seeing potential advantages working with other sponsors within NASCAR that provide services that we’re already buying from other companies.”

One final component of its NASCAR deal, Coppock said, is the role it plays with employees, both current and future. Arris has hospitality assets as part of its JGR pact, and Coppock said employees have been energized by the sponsorship. As for future employees, Coppock pointed out that Arris competes with companies such as Facebook and Google for recruits, so increased brand awareness was an incentive.

“When we go to Stanford, MIT or Georgia Tech and put our booth up to recruit, people want to know who Arris is, and we don’t want them to have to ask that question,” he said. “We’re a very high-tech, growing company, and NASCAR is fast and high tech.

“I don’t think we would have done this deal with any other team. It had to be a convergence of circumstances, and that’s exactly what it was.”

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