Nascar changing tactics...

In an article titled "Marketers Are Putting Nascar on Different Kinds of Circuits," in the New York Times, author Stuart Elliott discusses the 2008season for the Nascar Sprint Cup Series. The hooplah began on Sunday Februrary 17th and ita sponsors accelerated efforts to reach fans through the Internet and other nontraditional media.

For years, marketers with Nascar deals -- among them Best Western, Coca-Cola, Ford, General Motors, Molson Coors, Nationwide, Office Depot, Procter & Gamble, and others, focusing their ad spending in mainstream media like television, radio, print and billboards.

The author notes that Nascar was pretty conventional in thier advertising, "If they were in a daring or experimental mood, they would -- gasp! -- buy some commercial time on cable."

Because of social, technological, and media progression this is now changing with campaigns with Nascar drivers and cars on Web sites, cellphones, digital video recorders, satellite TV and radio, video games, and mobile devices.

''It's incredibly important to reach the fans in different ways as they engage with our sport in different ways,'' said Steve Phelps, chief marketing officer at Nascar in Daytona Beach, Fla.

''If we don't do that,'' he added, bringing up a rival mode of transportation, ''we're going to miss the boat.''

It is becoming more and more evident that comanies nationally are recognizing the need to incorporate nontradtional media into thier mix. Even Nascar, an already established brand, hosuehold name, hasmillions of fans, 30 million of them, already consuming 8 hours a week of Nascar media.

At the same time, Nascar remains loyal to conventional media, as it is still a very important medium,"But as media becomes more fractionalized, we need to make sure we're finding the places where the fans are.''

One place the fans can be found is with thier cellphones. Hence, in 2008,Sprint is sponsoring a multimedia campaign with the theme ''Speed is beautiful.'' The campaign is by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, part of the Omnicom Group. There will also be a Nascar Sprint Cup mobile application for Sprint cellphones that will give information about driver lap times, speeds and point standings; radio broadcasts of races; and ''in-car driver communication'' for the cars entered in the Daytona 500.

Also, another popular way to increase new-media presence of Nascar sponsors is microsites, which are specialized Web sites devoted to Nascar that are separate from their mainstream sites.

For instance, Office Depot has officedepotracing.com, and Best Western has bestwesternracing.com

As you can see, even multi-successful companies like Nascar go all out on their advertising, and creative resources. Companies and brands have the task of keeping up with society, with our lies and dislikes, with our new gadgets and technological advances. Even if you have loyal customers and fans, you have to keep them happy, show them you still have it, reassure them, while swaying potential consumers to join the club.