Sports marketing and digital advertising go together like laces on a football or racing stripes on a fast car. Many people are visually engaged at major sporting events, whether it be watching the replay on big screens or watching a person propose marriage.

NASCAR is one of the best places to apply brand power in American sports. Major brands now consider NASCAR primary to their buy; it has eclipsed its competition for efficiency. Advertisers coin the phrase the “NASCAR Demo” which might surprise many at the affluent nature of these vast crowds. This is a family oriented sport and gender neutral with Mom, Dad and children attending races from neighboring states to across the country. They are attended by tailgaters, fans, spectators, merchants and the biggest brands in the U.S. At any given race there are as many as 100 to 300 thousand average attendees.

The GON Agency in conjunction with Vessel Mobile Billboards presented to the fans at Dover International Speedway (aka The Monster Mile) a new patent-pending media platform. The Mobile Billboard is a new product from Palm Tree Mobile which features 3 big digital screens and sound. The unit is a highly visible unit with the added value of being mobile to position the unit in front of the most amount of viewers both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The ground team positioned the mobile media center at the main entrance of the Speedway for 52 hours of continuous commercial loops for XM Radio and the High Rock Raceway. Because both advertisers are Indy Racing League supporters which would typically exclude them to be able to advertise at a NASCAR event. This was not the case for this race as the team placed both advertisers at the cross section of fans arriving and departing the NASCAR track.

The mobile media center broadcasts both still images and full motion video commercial loops. Creative artwork was supplied to onboard computer systems which deployed the commercials in a seamless fashion to the attendees. This demonstrates the effective nature of blending animation, sound and brands in a guerilla/ sports marketing efforts to penetrate brands awareness. “We saw this as an opportunity to take brands not normally at an event like this, but still target the right demographic audience for them. The medium is also a new medium and it is important for advertisers to consistently try new products which are being produced for the outdoor advertising industry. We use digital media platforms ourselves at this past year’s Super Bowl to advertise the Great Outdoor Network.com web site , and feel that more advertisers should test these cost efficient methods themselves, “stated Robert Shockey, CEO of the Great Outdoor Network.

Advertisers seeking this demographic allocate huge marketing budgets to these race events for a reason, it works. There are many mediums like digital billboards from Vessel and Palm Tree such as aerial Skytypers or large inflatable blimps to on-track opportunities from National Transit Media which can effectively target these events in a guerrilla fashion which gets advertisers noticed. This is just one example of how the GON Agency is effectively introducing new products and opportunities to the advertising community.