Sponsor amps up fan experience for Junior Nation
Dale Earnhardt Jr. // Archives, NASCAR Illustrated
Junior Nation, the legion of fans that back NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., have a new website for behind the-scenes video and autographed swag from their favorite driver.
Amp Energy, the PepsiCo drink that’s co-primary sponsor of Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevrolet, introduced a new website the week after the Daytona 500 that features daily giveaways, live chats, unique video and promotions.
Ampupthe88.com launched with a one-hour chat with Earnhardt, who talked about his runner-up finish at that Daytona 500, and followed up last week with a chat with crew chief Lance McGrew. Future chats will include crew members, a return showing by Earnhardt and possibly appearances by team owner Rick Hendrick and Earnhardt’s sister, Kelley, who runs Dale Jr.’s Nationwide Series business, JR Motorsports.
Tribal DDB Worldwide, Dallas, is Amp’s web partner on the site.
“We started this partnership with Dale Jr. a few years ago, and this year we feel like we’ve taken a giant leap forward with this kind of unprecedented access,” said Jeff Filiberto, senior marketing manager for the Amp brand.
The site is dressed in Amp’s bright green and black colors and features three video trailers of the Amp pit crew working at Hendrick Motorsports, home of the No. 88 team; Twitter posts from T.J. Majors, Earnhardt’s spotter; and a photo gallery of Earnhardt from the track.
The first live chat with Earnhardt drew about 15,000 visitors, which prompted the driver to say, “I really didn’t anticipate it being as popular as it was with the fans, but they really enjoyed that. … Our partners have done a great job using social networking to reach out to the fans.”
It hasn’t been easy for sponsors to crack the code on their racing websites. Many sit for days without updates and fail to consistently deliver enough content to drive traffic.
The task ahead of Amp will be keeping the site fresh enough to lure Earnhardt’s fans back. A daily giveaway will aid that effort, said PepsiCo’s George Cox, assistant manager for sports. Each of the items given away on the site is autographed, and the list of items ranges from posters to No. 88 Amp jackets.
Cox works with the Amp team on activation, which includes the Amp Energy Burnout Tour, a grassroots effort that puts a different spin on the standard show-car program. Instead of simply placing a car in front of a store, Amp’s team created a No. 88 car that enables fans to sit in it and floor the gas pedal, which produces a burnout from the spinning tires. The car remains stationary, but the engine revs and the wheels turn to produce that familiar white smoke fans normally see after a driver wins a race and spins his tires.
The burnout tour, which began with a trial schedule last year, will hit race markets but also go to specialty events such as state fairs and car shows. The new website is being promoted at the tour, as well as in commercials and with in-race broadcast integration on Fox. The tag: Before every moment, there’s a moment.
Whether it’s putting the fan in Earnhardt’s seat, chatting with the driver or showing video of the team from the race shop, “the idea around all of this is to get the fan inside Dale Jr.’s head,” Filiberto said. “We want the fan to feel what he’s feeling right before a race.”
Amp also is using the site to showcase a four-pack special that includes a DVD of Earnhardt’s team at work. It also will come in handy when Amp launches new products, such as its sugar-free lemonade, which will be featured in a future paint scheme on the No. 88 car.
“We’ve done things on the web in past years with videos, but what we’re doing now is providing that consistent, daily access, so the fans really feel like they’re interacting with the team,” Filiberto said.
