Da chase
Chicago is a sports town. One filled with Bulls, Bears, Blackhawks and the crosstown boys of summer. What about NASCAR? Well … why not? Chicagoans are open to having fun. With attendance trends waning for the sport, Chicagoland Speedway turned to us for ideas on expanding their audience, and we delivered by drawing in families and country music fans to have one last summer blast to remember.
The approach
Finding new fans
To drive sales, we engaged with qualified leads generated through sponsorships and general ad serving through programmatic media buying: retargeting, lookalike, and behavioral. On social we focused on the most active channels with the largest follower bases, and through this mix we helped create the best attendance for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race in five years.
Checking the odometer
We generated awareness through high impact sponsorships with premium publishers that over-indexed against each target audience and had strong cross-visiting with top NASCAR/Sports sites.
Social speedway
To reach the largest audiences, we focused on the most active channels. And then we used those leads to create interest and move tickets.
Changing the station
Promoting the experience on TV and radio was easy — we framed the race as a last chance to cash in on summer fun with flowing confetti and slashing checkered flags.
“Our efforts to reach new audiences continues to grow and show results that buck a national trend of diminishing attendance for NASCAR. We knew the challenges and stuck to our strategy, reaching out to “lapsed” fans as well as Spanish-speaking sports enthusiasts. And again we saw a lot of families and experience-seekers spinning the turnstiles. It’s a fun event, and it feels great to get more people to experience the thrill of NASCAR and have that last summer blast before we all retreat indoors for the Chicago winter.”
The work
“Windy City, Racing City” campaign
Our campaign connected the tracks’ racing tradition with Chicago’s grand sports reputation. We helped add another exciting sports attraction to the legendary Chicago sports lineup.
15th anniversary commercial
We cut together footage that recreated the feeling of the race itself. Our fast, frantic, and well-paced commercial excited fans and newcomers alike.
“We appreciate their results-driven approach ... taking the time to understand our mission and objectives then putting together a strategic game plan to achieve those objectives.”
The results
Our approach lead to the best attendance for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race in five years. The highly-focused campaign helped bring back the lapsed fans as well as some new ones — including hispanic families and young thrill seekers. And all of this came back with a 200% return on investment.