Sometimes promoting yourself is about promoting something else. Lialani Munter is an Indy Car driver who’s mission is not only winning on the track but making the 75 million Indy Car fans more environmentally aware. I admire the mission and don’t question her motives. From a PR standpoint, this is certainly a well designed campaign. The Munter brand is unique as she is one of only a handfull of women Indy Car drivers - an up and coming star on the track. A popular and compelling message of ecology, green, and conservation is added. A nice on-line presence and a host of earned media top off the campaign. Another differentiator is how she plans to deliver the message to the race fan. Typically teams sell major and minor sponsorships priced based on logo location on the car, the uniforms and all sorts of flat and not-flat surfaces - pretty much anywhere you could imagine a logo or name being seen. What her team is doing different is breaking up the major sponsorship into smaller shares and using the major locations on the car for the message of the race. An example might, as she describes, be the promotion of CFL bulbs. Rather than having the logo of GoDaddy or Texaco on the apron or the wing, she’ll have the picture of a CFL bulb and then move the sponsor logos to the side a bit. The sponsors get the bounce of the unique message additional earned media coverage and, I’d argue, more exposure. Carrying this off the track, rather than selling hats and t-shirts, the team will sell CFL bulbs and reusable canvas bags. The message changes race to race refreshing the story and pulling people to see what’s new. Brilliant! Read more for yourself at her web site.
