Leveraging its sponsorship of Chip Ganassi Racing to tout a new insulin product, health care company Novo Nordisk this week will kick off a major marketing campaign during the Verizon IndyCar Series’ return to Phoenix.
The company, which is the largest insulin maker in the world and has a seasonlong Ganassi Racing sponsorship around its IndyCar program, will run a special paint scheme on driver Charlie Kimball’s No. 83 Chevrolet for 14 of the 15 remaining races in IndyCar’s 16-race 2016 schedule, starting with Saturday’s Phoenix Grand Prix at Phoenix International Raceway.
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Charlie Kimball’s No. 83 Chevrolet will carry Novo Nordisk’s Tresiba brand for 14 of the remaining 15 IndyCar races this year.
Photo by: LAT USA
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The new product is called Tresiba, which treats Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and is the first new insulin the company has offered in six years. The product is one Novo Nordisk spent years researching and developing, having originally tried to get it approved by the Federal Drug Administration in 2012. Tresiba also has a connection to Ganassi Racing’s IndyCar driver Kimball, who has Type 1 diabetes and uses the product.
Tresiba received regulatory approval from the FDA six months ago. But FDA rules prohibit new pharmaceutical offerings from being marketed for the first six months after approval while doctors become familiar with the product, leading to the timing of the effort around this weekend’s race.
“We’ve known the product is coming, and we’ve been talking about how we can be part of it,” said Steve Lauletta, president of Chip Ganassi Racing, which runs four cars in IndyCar, three in NASCAR, two in Red Bull Global Rallycross and is also in IMSA. “They’ve got a big important launch, which they’re making our partnership and Charlie Kimball the center of — and when any major brand does something like that, it’s always great to be part of.”
Lauletta said that while Ganassi Racing has been involved in product launches before with vendors of Target, which is the team’s longest-tenured sponsor, this is the largest effort he can remember for the team around the launch of a specific team sponsor’s product.
On top of running the paint scheme at all races except IndyCar’s stop in Toronto, where the product is not approved yet, Novo Nordisk will support with a media buy on the sport’s two media rights partners, ABC/ESPN and NBC Sports Group. The media buy will include in-race integration as opposed to solely traditional commercial advertising. The company has shot TV ads with Kimball in the past, but hasn’t decided yet on further creative.
The company also will run heavy digital and social messaging throughout the season while Kimball will make appearances on behalf of the Danish company whose U.S. headquarters are in New Jersey.
Novo Nordisk has been a partner of Ganassi Racing for six years in a deal that sources value between $5 million and $7 million annually.
“Once we realized that [Kimball’s] experience on Tresiba was one that was worthwhile of telling more people, and we had this great opportunity with the race car team, it was really a no-brainer for us,” said Ambre Brown Morley, Novo Nordisk’s senior director of product communications and patient relations for its diabetes and obesity marketing group. “Tresiba is a very important product for us … a lot of R&D went into it, a lot of blood sweat and tears, so the excitement around this product is huge.”
