Matt Kenseth's Daytona 500 victory: Now it's up to Jack Roush and Geoff Smith to market for the payoff

  
Gentlemen, start your marketing! Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth gets congrats from crew chief Todd Parrott (Photo: autostock)

  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

  
   DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.
   It's a marketing bonanza, winning the Daytona 500, but now Matt Kenseth has miles to go before he sleeps again.
   And car owner Jack Roush's marketing guru, Geoff Smith, is already throwing a full-court press: manning the phone banks, hawking his wares, and hoping that a Roush man – like Carl Edwards did a year ago – can follow up with victories this weekend in Los Angeles and next weekend in Las Vegas.
   Roush himself offered a warning Sunday night to rivals: "We've got some unfinished business out West."
   Yes, the first NASCAR win of the new season is in the can, for everyone, finally, after a grueling SpeedWeeks, and now it's time for some heavy-duty marketing, and not just by Kenseth, though he'll certainly be the sharp end of the stick.
   Kenseth's overtime work this spring has only just begun. By the time the daffodils are blooming, he'll probably be exhausted. This week it's LA, and then Vegas.
   And to judge by the play – negative – that NASCAR got in some quarters of Chicago for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s antics, and NASCAR's wink-blink-nod, that market may need a shot of Kenseth too. He's from Wisconsin, so it's a fit.
   Junior himself probably owes the sport a PR shot or two in the Windy City right now too.
   After what had been a sparkling build-up to Sunday, the 500 itself was anticlimactic.
   Certainly not the shot in the arm this sport needed on the current economic battlefield.
   And no matter how it might really have gone down in those final minutes behind the scenes, fans and viewers were left Sunday evening with the impression that Fox had called the shot to end the race, looking at a 7 p.m. deadline, and that NASCAR – as it did last fall at Phoenix when ABC pulled the plug on the final miles, in order to switch to America's Funniest Home Videos -- simply acquiesced.
   Since when did 7 o'clock become NASCAR's witching hour anyway?
   By not standing up more forcefully for the integrity of the sport on these issues, NASCAR CEO Brian France is missing an opportunity.
   The rainy finish? Well, it's hard to deal with Mother Nature, yes, but the way that played out Sunday night left a sour taste in the mouth.
   Consider how NASCAR has handled rain at other places: Kansas, California, Darlington….
   There had better be a good game plan for these next two NASCAR tour stops, because the West Coast is getting drenched.
   Déjà vu?
   The sudden decision to pull the plug on the sport's biggest race left too many good stories dangling.
    Like the Richard Petty-AJ Allmendinger story…and Elliott Sadler…and Michael Waltrip.
  
  

  
  
Mr. Popularity: Jack Roush off to a great start in 2009. Are those hats for sale out on Souvenir Row? (Photo Credit: Len Pepe/Motorsports Images and Archives)
  
   One issue: Kenseth is a good guy, yes, but typically mild-mannered, in the Jimmie Johnson mold, a Mr. Machine on the track and a less-than-thrilling interview. That will be tested in the coming days.  Winning the Daytona 500, you'd better have fun with your victory lane celebration, because the next few days are going to be filled with NASCAR promotions.
   Now the question is just what can NASCAR do in Los Angeles up against the Academy Awards?
   Maybe that's why Tom Cruise was in the pace car here Sunday.
   But it's not easy for stock car teams to deal with this sluggish economic climate.
   However Geoff Smith, who runs the business side of Roush's racing empire, has a game plan, and Smith hopes to parlay this golden opportunity into some big hits.
   Hope Kenseth is in good shape. This could be exhausting.
   Kenseth's first chore was a Monday breakfast press conference here: "I wasn’t smart enough to be prepared and bring clothes, so we actually flew home and flew back real early this morning," Kenseth admitted. 
    "So I haven't really done anything to celebrate yet. I just hung out with the guys in victory lane."
   That Monday event was wrapped around Fox and Friends, Mike and Mike in the Morning, Dan Patrick and a bunch more interviews. And then Kenseth did a David Letterman 'pre-interview' to set the stage for Monday's taping.
    Tuesday will be a whirlwind: Fox' Good Day NY, then Live with Regis and Kelly (maybe Jeff Gordon ought to be on hand too), a New York Times sit-down, more New York City media gab, a NASCAR teleconference to talk about all this stuff, Las Vegas radio interviews, a Fox business report…then a late-night flight from NYC to San Francisco, to prepare for Wednesday's major marketing campaign there (complete with media stops around town, and photo ops at the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman's Wharf and Willie Mays Plaza. Then a sprint to Los Angeles for a Thursday media blitz…
   Smith himself says he's laying out plans to increase the number of sponsor partners in the company's marketing portfolio, certainly a challenge:
   "Our sponsors are universally indicating their strong desire to preserve their marketing presence with the NASCAR fan base," Smith says.
   "At the same time they are telling us that recessionary-driven budgetary pressures have or will force reductions in their investment now or in the near future.
    "We see this as the common dynamic that will be present for most teams and sponsors this year.
    "The solution for everyone is clear -- the portfolio of current sponsors needs to be maintained while the number of new sponsors needs to increase significantly.
    "That conclusion is triggering Roush Fenway's biggest shift in sponsorship marketing strategy in my 20 years in the sport."
   One of the key moves is to sign with the Fenway Sports Group to provide additional sales representation. That gives Roush increased access to the Boston Red Sox' own marketing operations and key links there.
   Another key move: creating marketing synergies between Roush's current sponsors and new sponsors.
   Such piggyback marketing, though with obvious win-win benefits in general, has been tough for most in this sport to pull off.
   "Historically 'primary' sponsors, that control sponsorship rights to a top-rated team and driver, are reluctant to share their rights in a significant way," Smith says.
   "The paradigm shift we're seeing now is that our current sponsors are not only allowing us to open up their team-and-driver inventory to new partners, but they are also providing additional marketing support for those new sponsors.
    "This means that new sponsors can have access to the sport's premier sponsorship base (Roush's tops sponsors are 3M, Aflac, Diageo and DEWALT) as well as access to the top performers in the sport -- Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Jamie McMurray.
   "Before the recession, this caliber of opportunity was almost always off the market before a sponsor new to the sport could have an opportunity to bid for the rights.
    "It's challenging right now…but the opportunities have never been better for new sponsors."
    Of course the trick now is to get those new sponsors to jump into these waters.
    But at least Smith and Roush, with Kenseth's Daytona victory, are a step ahead of their rivals right now.