Fox Sports is bringing back its “Daytona Day” Daytona 500 marketing campaign to kick off the 2017 NASCAR season and broadening the effort with more buy-in from other NASCAR stakeholders.
Fox last year introduced “Daytona Day” to increase the appeal of NASCAR’s crown-jewel race into more mainstream America, and the network now envisions the campaign as a long-term strategy. Robert Gottlieb, Fox Sports’ executive vice president of marketing, said the rationale is that the Daytona 500 doubles as a social gathering for fans and casual observers, much like the Final Four or Super Bowl.
Last year’s campaign was highlighted by a 60-second spot that showed young revelers in a range of settings away from the racetrack partying on raceday. For this year’s campaign, Gottlieb said Fox will have around seven ads, from a highlight-filled spot designed for avid fans that will debut during the NFL’s NFC Championship, to a “big, splashy, epic” spot that will skew closer to last year’s edgier ad and feature driver and celebrity cameos. That spot, “Anthem,” will debut during the Super Bowl. Fox worked with Pereira & O’Dell plus director Joseph Kahn on the creative.
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Fox filmed Danica Patrick and Kevin Harvick as part of the “Daytona Day” campaign.
Photo by: FOX SPORTS
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“We had a lot of learnings that we’re bringing into Year 2, and the most significant is last year we were really on our own with it,” Gottlieb said. “This year, very early on, NASCAR, (Daytona International Speedway) and ourselves got together and recognized that the idea of ‘Daytona Day’ is a platform that the whole industry can use, from the dealers to the teams, sponsors, tracks and beyond. It was very important to make this not a Fox initiative but an industrywide initiative.”
As a result, this year will feature “Daytona Day” activation and digital-media amplification from NASCAR, DIS and industry sponsors including Anheuser-Busch, Xfinity, Toyota and Smithfield. Daytona will share Fox’s creative on its social channels and ask fans who are at track to share how they are celebrating the day of the race, said track President Chip Wile.
Jill Gregory, NASCAR’s senior vice president and CMO, said the sanctioning body is developing its own “Daytona Day” marketing activities to dovetail with Fox’s.
“What we’ve been doing is getting with Robert and his team earlier, participating in joint planning sessions with DIS, identifying which partners that we all share that might want to help amplify the message heading into the 500,” Gregory said.
Fox will roll out a “500-hour countdown to the 500” social media campaign where, every hour starting 500 hours from the beginning of the race, the network will release content related to the event on its social media channels. The content will include photos, original video, behind-the-scenes clips and studio show segments.
Fox Sports will cross promote the “Daytona Day” promos heavily across the 21st Century Fox family of networks, including a Daytona-themed spot with “The Simpsons.” Fox will buy an off-channel ad package for the creative, something it did not do last year.
“The messaging is, ‘Hey, just as you don’t need to be an expert on the 3-2 zone trap of the Western Hilltoppers to enjoy March Madness, you just have to enjoy getting together with friends and family,’” Gottlieb said. “We see the same opportunity with Daytona.”
