Motorcross marketing

[Jason B]

<copied from my ww post>

Yes, it makes perfect sense for several reasons.
-The demographics are nearly identical.
-The obvious cross-over appeal.
-High visibility
-races are family oriented
-moto heads are "generally" fairly loyal to brands
-national exposure of the products

Most importantly,-MX/SX Sponsorship has a very low cost per impression vs. traditional marketing avenues. Name recognition (from non-boat owners) is critical to establish BEFORE the prospective customer starts shopping. If they recognize the name before they even hit the stores to shop you're a step ahead of the competition! New customers and growth of the market sector comes from new entries. Repeat customers are very important, but if they never even consider you an option before they pusrchase thier 1st boat how do they become repeat buyers?

The down side of MX/SX/AX sponsorhip is the continued involvement in the marketing venture is ESSENTIAL. You can't throw money at a team and then sit back and wait for the cash registers to start ringing--won't happen. There needs to be a significant amount of follow up and utilization of the investment or you wasted your money.
I have personally designed, implemented, and maintained a marketing campaign for a large food manufacturer with special emphasis on MX/SX/AX including 5k+ athletes on SponsorHouse.com, many of whom were riders. Either myself or my business partner attended every single SX/MX/AX race that our team ran in to promote the brand. Team managers and riders have waaayyyy too much to do on race day, don't think they'll be there singing Tige's praises all day. It is not easy and the "customers" can be very, very demanding and thankless. A little more rain on the parade is the fact that you are selling durable goods with a significant price tag--that limits your marketing avenues like the giveaways and marketing material. Furthermore, you can not (by AMA rules) hand out materials or stickers at any SX event unless you are an Event sponsor; teams do from time to time, BUT, they aren't supposed to.

Hope this helps in some way. If you have more specific questions please feel free to PM me

[Jason B]

I guess the question is how many boats do you have to sell to justify the cost of having a Kawasaki boat sitting at the marina/supercross race/biker's back yard? I would suspect that it depends on how eager they are to have a boat. If you give them a boat for free, I think you would not be able to recoup that loss, IMHO. If you take the boat back after 2 years, and sell it, then that might be some pretty cheap advertising to a niche in your market for sure.

Typically, this is what is done with all EXCEPT the biggest riders (Bubba or RC). Even Bubba's Bentley was a lease he had to turn back to Fox.

The problem with saying "how many boats do you have to sell to justify the cost of having a Kawasaki boat sitting at the marina/supercross race/biker's back yard?" is that how do you quantify who bought a boat because they saw it at SX? You can't. You really have absolutely NO WAY of knowing who bought for a specific reason. This is the exact reason marketing must be done on soooo many different fronts simultaneously. It becomes a matter of being everywhere possible that a potential new customer may be. The more they see of you the more they identify with you (or the brand in this instance).

[SPBFAN]

It is definitely an open door approach. I would consider also looking into the Skate Boarding and X-Game events. I have converted three kids from skate boarding to Wake Boarding. They still skate board, but when ever my boys and I are going to the lake there friends will do what ever they have to in order for there parents to let them go sake board on a wake board. Those two sports cross over very well.

I think it would be really cool if the Olympics had Wake Boarding as a sport. I would be up for trying to track down and put together a committee to present the sport to the International Olympic committee. If they can make snow boarding a sport wake boarding should be part of the summer games.

[Surfdad]

We currently own six motorcycles. Since high school, I've probably owned 20 different bikes, everything from an old 441 Victor to a 70's era Kawasaki 900 Z1. My current stable includes a KX250, 2 Honda XR400's, a chopper, an original sand cast 1969 Honda CB750 K0, plus a pit bike.

I've never attended a supercross in all the years I've owned motorcycles. I've watched one or two moto x's at hangtown, but that's over the course of 30 years. Personally, I'd rather ride than watch someone else do it.

I've attended other sporting events, like a Kings game. I've looked at the "no name pickup truck" in the lobby of the auditorium and mostly I've thought - I wish they hadn't put that there, it makes getting to the snack bar a hassle. I cannot recal,l at this point, the make or the model or if it was even a truck.

I don't believe I have ever purchased any durable good, or for that matter, remembered the name of a durable good from seeing it at an unrelated sporting event. While I have purchased directly related products, such as goggles, tear-offs and I did purchase the KX250, after some research, after first seeing it on display at a hillclimb, while we were out riding that day.

My

[SPOLK69]

Not me I went to 2001 new boat show (Austin tx) and bought a racing 4 wheeler that was at the sea doo booth. It worked on me.

[ragboy]

We also ride. I own 9 ATVs, need to sell one. We all ride together as a family and camp and ride. I also own 2 street bikes, but have only been to 1 supercross event many moons ago also. For me, and it may be just me, I don't think aligning with a mx manufacturer would influence my purchase at all, but it may with some hard core fans. Then again, it could turn away just as many hard core fans. Hard core fans of say kawasaki may want a tige due to the promotion, but it may cause hard core yamaha and suzuki fans to stay away.

I will say, I have been influenced in my purchasing by sponsoring of local events. Like INT wakebaording, surf contests, etc. For instance, I specifically bought hyperlite wakeboards due to the podium payback program. I really want to support manufacturers that support those types of events and such.

[lee]

^^^ Skating would be a great place to do some advertising. There are tons of kids that skate and it definitely worked out for Tony Hawk.

Roller or in-line?

[Lucky 275]

You guys make me feel like my carbon footprint is too small I'm going to start my riding and push mower and let them run all night. Gotta keep up with the Tige Jones'

[LovinPowell]

I think cross marketing is great, but I also think there are opportunities without cross marketing. For instance, wakesurfing. I think it is still a very untapped opportunity that only Centurion has really jumped on, and now sanger. Tige makes a great wake on both sides, and if you are reading ww lately, you can see a lot of frustration with centurion owners over this issue. Tige with a few mods to ballast, and maybe a specially designed surfing swimstep option, could be very marketable as a great wakesurf boat. It would seem at less expense than maybe cross marketing. Just a thought.

I would like to see Tige focus some of their efforts on protecting the sport of wakesurfing from legislative intrusions. Wake surfing is a safe sport that is getting a "bad rap" in some areas of the country. To have a manufacturer step up and be involved in making sure that it stays legal in areas where it is and that laws against it are repealed would be really good.

For an example of what I'm talking about see this thread:

http://www.tigeowners.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6789

[dogbert]

I would like to see Tige focus some of their efforts on protecting the sport of wakesurfing from legislative intrusions. Wake surfing is a safe sport that is getting a "bad rap" in some areas of the country. To have a manufacturer step up and be involved in making sure that it stays legal in areas where it is and that laws against it are repealed would be really good.

For an example of what I'm talking about see this thread:

http://www.tigeowners.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6789

Unfortunately, they will only be one voice and, unless they have the deep pockets of a major corporation, they won't even make a dent. None of the inboard manufacturers are that big. They'll need to band together to keep this from happening.

In reality, it's going to take people to get organized.

[tigesinaus]

in aus tige sponsors the V8 supercars. they give some of the divers a boat for the year just to have a sticker on the car or something rather small like that..

[Jason B]

The goal is impressions, impressions, impressions. The more times you see soemething, the more likely you are to purchase it. Period.

What they did with the team wasn't for the purpose of aligning themselves with a specific manufacturer. Every team is committed to a brand. In this instance "Team Green" is the biggest, most recognizable, most successful amatuer program in the world. They're a great team to be linked with--they just happen to be a Kawasaki team.

[jwanck11]

Agreed JB but it seems there is far more potential exposure (frequency and overall reach advantages) associating with an organization (X-Games) over a single sport/team.

Now if Kawi wanted to agree to make visible the mean green Tige at all events where they are a marquee manufacturer.... that would perhaps be a different story.

[da.bell]

Roller or in-line?

Skate boarding.

[chpthril]

Roller or in-line?