I've been thinking hard the last couple of days about some slogans or phrases that might get some attention. In my career I have learned that you first must understand the problem to effectively develop a strategy for pr.
I think based on this great thread that we understand the primary problem... image of the class, outsider's knowledge of the class, and superior bang for the buck compared with other classes (somebody correct if me if I'm wrong or missed something). To that end I want to suggest a slogan that I really think will get attention, which is all we need. A slogan will never sell anything but if we get someone's attention we have an opportunity to do the selling ourselves. The slogan would be stated: Formula 500, The Low Cash Go Fast Solution This could be on shirts, etc. and for the cars themselves it could be watered down for space to read: F500 Low Cash, Go Fast! While I think the bumper sticker idea about have enough money for booze and women is pretty funny I don't see my wife letting me get away with putting that on my car anytime soon - no offense to the suggestion. I read somebody saying something about reaching the younger crowd and I agree as I consider myself to still be young (just turned 36, ouch) but we have to realize that a person probably has to be just old enough to have a career (i.e. money to spend) or young enough to still have a trust fund to do any kind of racing. The slogan is just step one. After that comes a well thought out advertising campaign in publications that will reach the right sort audience and most importantly a grass roots effort to spread the word to potential racers across all our regions. I will be happy to have some design work done (gratis) for potential shirt designs and sticker designs as well as some speculative ads if the group thinks it's a good idea. I may be new to this community but I do believe in it and would like to be racing these cars for many years to come. Okay, I'm done now so feel free to fire the rockets away at the idea. Sean Sean G. McDonald Advertising Director Peninsula Daily News 360-417-3540 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 24, 2006 5:33 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [F500] racing car counts Cory, The snapped belt may not be expensive in and of itself, but when the entire weekend is thrown away because it breaks in lap 2, the effective cost is the entire weekend, i.e., entry fee, hotel, tow gas, tires, etc. From my experience, my actual finish rate hovers around 50%, and I do a LOT of preventive maintenance, and have never hit another car, hit a wall, or otherwise created a driver-error DNF. Under any circumstances, I think you missed my point (or I just didn't get it across well). If you ask most people in the paddock what they think of F500, you will get several responses, and these are what limit our attractiveness to those who come into SCCA with no understanding of our class structures. 1) Unreliable 2) Noisy (almost as bad as RX-7s or FMs) 3) 'Not real race cars' or 'overgrown go-karts' 4) Just another formula class with 2 cars on the track To solve perception #4 by growing, we have to deal with perceptions 1 through 3. Also, if I may, has anyone thought about trying to get the word out by putting information in karting magazines? Putting ads into SCCA is talking to those who already know who we are, IMHO...... Marshall Mauney 2002 Red Devil In a message dated 7/23/2006 5:44:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: <<<Although our cars do take a lot of "tinkering", I have to disagree with Marshall regarding reliability. If you run your engine stock/legal and replace the belts on a reasonable cycle, I beleive our cars are very reliable. The guys who got me into racing were IT drivers and they were also having to work on their cars all the time. A big difference was when they had a mechanical DNF, it was something much more expensvie than a $50 belt. I do agree that you can race a SS or IT and have long periods where you don't have to spend so much time between races on maintenance (like we do), but the guys that do that aren't winning national or ARRC races. In addition to spending $25k for an engine from Sunbelt, how much reliability do you give up when you tweak an SM to the point where it can win national races? I am not trying to flame Marshall, I just beleive that it is accrate to describe our class as very reliable.>>> _______________________________________________ F500 mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change options please visit: http://f500.org/mailman/listinfo/f500 *** Please, DO NOT send unsubscribe requests to the mailing list! ***
