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I've been hearing about NASCAR's female fans and all the clever cross-promotional ideas and licensed products for a while now, but this recent Sports Illustrated article pulled it all together for me....
The stats, as reported therein:
"According to a pair of recent surveys, of NASCAR's 75 million fans 40 percent are women. For every two new NASCAR fans, one of them is a woman. Women will spend $250 million on NASCAR-licensed products this year, and 68 percent of those women say they're only going to become bigger NASCAR fans. And according to Nielsen, women are more likely to flip over to a NASCAR race than any sport outside of football."
Because I'm not in the NASCAR fan base myself, willing to buy $200+ shoes with logos and plenty of pink apparel, I am all the more fascinated. What, pray tell, is NASCAR's key to such incredible success with women?
They didn't try.
The brand has not done backflips to find "women's" angles, they have just delivered on their 50-year promise (check out the history of the sport here): viewing excitement and a growing and passionate community of like-minded people, with celebrity drivers that don't stray too far from the fan base.
There's a particular profile of men who become avid racing fans, and they are at the center of the NASCAR market (of course). Their enthusiasm is infectious. Their closest male and female friends/loved ones start to wonder... "hmmm, I'd like some of that in my life - let me check this out."
Those people then start to watch it on television and maybe attend a race or two in-person. What they find is that NASCAR is beyond cars going around a track in the hot sun. It is a lifestyle with hundreds of thousands of people who love it, follow it, and enjoy talking about it and making it a central part of their lives.
Infectious enthusiasm is the name of this game.
Now, here come the pink t-shirts and diverse range of licensed products, and events, which perhaps don't attract new female fans, as much as keep the buzz going for existing fans. Any woman on the fringe of that action will be pulled into participation by the excitement of all their buddies who have "joined" the NASCAR brand and become part of the community.
The lesson: DON'T worry about marketing to women as some separate effort. Instead, build your brand with its passionate core and let the enthusiastic fan base sell the experience for you. When pink t-shirts and stiletto heels with logos develop "organically" - they are meant to be!
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Comments
I disagree with Andrea's premise that having a good product makes it unnecessary to acknowledge or market to women. In fact, once NASCAR officials noticed that women were coming to the track, they began an aggressive marketing campaign realizing the potential they had. Could their numbers have swollen quicker with some strategic marketing moves? Probably. I’m not a big advocate of pink as the way to reach women. Right now women are so happy to have apparel made to fit them, that pink is ok. I doubt it will be NASCAR’s main thrust in the future as they try to continue and enhancetheir courtship with women consumers.
Posted by: Gerry Myers | 04.25.06
I agree! The color pink is in now, and a lot of brands are leveraging it. But, that's because it is a fashion trend today, and not just "pink because all girls have always liked pink" - which would have reflected an old-fashioned/superficial approach to marketing to women. And, I understand your point about NASCAR, and agree that it is worth it to focus more attention on the women's market once you see the interest. I am just impressed by brands that do what they do best.. and let core fans generate initial excitement with the next layer of customers, organically - without stepping in and forcing the issue too soon. A smaller number of women enjoyed NASCAR before any pink t-shirts or special promotions. Their enthusiasm helped ignite the interest of more women, AND those "early adopting" women also caught the attention of marketing savvy NASCAR, so they then wisely committed to the female fan base - with the stilettos, pink t-shirts, perfume and so on.
Posted by: Andrea Learned | 04.25.06
Being a marketer and a lifelong NASCAR fan, (I went to my first Daytona 500 at 14-years-old in 1980,) I read this post with great interest. I disagree with the theory that NASCAR’s shouldn’t market to women, especially knowing how difficult it has been for years to find a sweatshirt or t-shirt that fits right. Even now, the catalog has a two page spread for female merchandise and probably a dozen pages for everything male. NASCAR seriously misses the mark.
Go to a race and you’ll see mostly 30-50-something folks, many with kids in tow. Unfortunately, the “pink” female wear is made for teens and twenty-somethings. It’s rather inappropriate for the average female NASCAR fan.
Imagine the marketing potential of the right merchandise. With a 40 percent female fan base despite any effort to attract them, imagine what would happen if NASCAR really nailed this demo!
Posted by: Christine Pilch | 04.26.06
This is purely observational, but it always seems to me like the licensed merchandise NASCAR produces (bikinis, stiletto heels, baby doll t-shirts, and so on) appeals mostly to the male buyer...not to the women themselves.
Posted by: Ann Handley | 04.27.06