Wiley X® Eyewear – NASCAR Marketing Tour

On average, 185,000 fans attend a NASCAR event. And about 184,999 of them, on average, wear sunglasses during the race. JMG saw an opportunity for a company we admired, but wasn't yet a partner. We noticed that Wiley X was aggressively signing NASCAR drivers as spokesmen (such as Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick), but wasn't marketing to NASCAR fans. In fact, not one single high-end eyewear company was marketing to fans at NASCAR events. Our idea: create a Wiley X mobile marketing tour.

Client

Wiley X® Eyewear, a premier eyewear manufacturer out of Livermore, California.

Challenge

The first challenge was getting Wiley X as excited about the possibilities of a Wiley X mobile marketing tour as JMG was. We pitched the idea and they agreed to partner with us. The next challenge was to create a comprehensive mobile marketing display that would travel to 36 NASCAR events per year. This display would serve to not only educate the fan base on the product, but to also offer eyewear for sale. So to also help support the growing retail stores and optometrists selling the Wiley X Brand, it was also important that the program be marketing-based. Eyewear would be offered for sale, but pricing integrity had to be maintained. Most importantly, we wanted this tour to be a very cost effective marketing tool for brand awareness.

Solution

JMG built two custom NASCAR "Pit Carts," DVD/Flat screen compatible, to travel to all the events and be part of a flexible 10x20 up to a 10x44 foot marketing display. The pit carts and hauler trailer were wrapped and branded.

Marketing pieces were incorporated from pre-season photo shoots of the various NASCAR drivers wearing the Wiley X shades. A 5-minute video was also produced to include multiple 30-second endorsements by the NASCAR drivers. This video also included historical information about Wiley X, as well as peeks into the company's other markets of penetration...sporting goods, extreme sports, fashion, hunting, fishing, safety, law enforcement and military to name a few.

Results

After testing the waters and attending about half of NASCAR's events, it was determined that our model did indeed work. More fans noticed that drivers were wearing the Wiley X brand, more fans visited the display, and more fans purchased sunglasses. There was also a measurable increase in purchases of Wiley X eyewear on the Wiley X website, with "Heard about it at NASCAR" being the 3rd top comment after "Other" and "Heard about it from a Friend" as to what drove them to purchase.

Last year, we attended all the NASCAR events for the season. And this year, we've expanded to include a few motorcycle rallies and air shows and are planning for additional expansion in the coming years. We have also expanded to weekend advertising on ESPN/NASCAR Radio (including a weekly live call-in from the track), advertising in the track programs, and limited on-car sponsorships.

Solution Components