NASCAR Season Launch Campaign Honored at 2016 CLIO Sports Awards
Ready. Set. Race, Hashtag 500 Among Silver Award Winners; Social-Heavy Campaign Also Recognized at Cannes Lions Festival
DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. (July 8, 2016) – Inspired by the simple truth that all human beings love to race, NASCAR’s season launch marketing campaign, Ready. Set. Race, was celebrated as the winner of three Silver CLIO Sports Awards during the ceremony last night in New York.
The overall campaign was awarded Silver honors in the Integrated Campaign category, while the unique social media promotion, the Hashtag 500, and lead creative spot were recognized in the Social Media and Film categories, respectively.
Developed by Ogilvy & Mather New York, Ready. Set. Race introduced the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series™ season leading up to the 2016 Daytona 500® through a blend of digital and social media activation, and advertising creative.
“Ready. Set. Race is a significant campaign for NASCAR in that it represents an evolved approach to how we market the sport,” said Jill Gregory, NASCAR senior vice president, Marketing and Industry Services. “We’re prioritizing fan engagement above all else and leading campaigns with digital and social marketing, and that’s created a more immersive experience for NASCAR fans.”
The Hashtag 500 was designed to engage fans around the Great American Race and last month garnered awards at the annual Cannes Lions festival in France. The social promotion, where fans tweeted custom hashtags to win race-used memorabilia from drivers and the Daytona 500, won a Cannes Silver Lion in the sports entertainment category, and a Cannes Bronze Lion in Digital & Social for best use of social platforms.
The Ready. Set. Race campaign and “It’s In Our Blood” spot were shortlist honorees at Cannes Lions 2016.
“Our goal for Ready. Set. Race was to help NASCAR engage with its fans in new and different ways,” said Teddy Lynn, chief creative officer, Content & Social, Ogilvy & Mather. “This year we created a campaign that encouraged consumers to bring their natural-born racing mentality to life. We’re thrilled with the response the work received at the CLIO Sports Awards and last month in Cannes, but even more so with the reaction from our most important audience: NASCAR fans.”
Another NASCAR creative spot, titled “What If,” received a Bronze CLIO Sports award in the Short Form category. The 90-second spot launched in 2015 and recounts the history of NASCAR, from the earliest days of stock car racing through to today’s action-packed events at iconic race tracks like Daytona International Speedway.
Halfway through the 2016 season, the combination of great racing and a marketing strategy driven by digital and social media have helped drive fan consumption of the sport. From January through June, NASCAR has more than doubled its follower growth compared to the same period last season. In addition, engagement with social content has increased by 83 percent year-over-year, with more than 114 million total engagements.
The 2016 Daytona 500 saw more NASCAR-related social conversation than any single day since the inception of the NASCAR Fan and Media Engagement Center (FMEC). Social conversation was up 44 percent compared to last year’s race.
The Hashtag 500 fan race on Twitter to win Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s firesuit generated the most NASCAR-related mentions in one minute (13,000) since the inception of the FMEC.
About NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc. (NASCAR) is the sanctioning body for the No. 1 form of motorsports in the United States. NASCAR consists of three national series (the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series™, NASCAR XFINITY Series™, and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series™), four regional series, one local grassroots series and three international series. The International Motor Sports Association™ (IMSA®) governs the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship™, the premier U.S. sports car series. Based in Daytona Beach, Fla., with offices in eight cities across North America, NASCAR sanctions more than 1,200 races in more than 30 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico and Europe. For more information visit http://www.NASCAR.com and http://www.IMSA.com, and follow NASCAR on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat (‘NASCAR’).
Sources: Pete Stuart/NASCAR Integrated Marketing Communications