If an owner won’t promote his own biz, why should sponsors?

July 26, 2011 10 Comments »

How can Roger Penske justify his asking price for sponsorship when his own company wants no part of NASCAR marketing? Photo by Jennifer Coleman/Iowa Speedway

So, Parker Kligerman shows up on “NASCAR Race Hub” recently to talk about his consecutive runner-up finishes in the Camping World Truck Series despite driving a Dodge Ram with no factory support.

The story is inspiring, until it gets a little weird. Kligerman can hardly let the interview get started before saying that he can’t wait to find sponsorship so he can get Penske Truck Rental off the hood.

Kligerman drives, at least theoretically, for car owner and Penske driver Brad Keselowski. But much of the bill is likely picked up by Roger Penske, since Kligerman is still a Penske developmental driver, and Penske (aka “The Captain”) did the same for Kligerman when he broke out in the ARCA Series for Cunningham Motorsports.

And if I were one of Penske’s sponsors (Miller Lite, Shell/Pennzoil, Discount Tire, Ruby Tuesday, etc.), I’d be calling The Captain to inquire about what the hell is going on.

Penske Truck Leasing, the parent organization of Penske Truck Rental, has annual revenue of about $4 billion, per the company’s website. And yet, that company seemingly has no ability to either afford or expect any return on investment for Kligerman’s efforts, so it has to get its logos off the truck ASAP?

In other words, a trucking company can’t get any positive exposure in the Truck Series? If I’m one of Penske’s sponsors, I’m asking, “If you’ve admitted that putting your company’s logo on a NASCAR entry is worthless, then what am I spending millions on?”

Now, to be fair this isn’t always a black-and-white issue. Dale Earnhardt Jr. has occasionally thrown his Whisky River bars on one of his JR Motorsports Nationwide cars when he didn’t have another sponsor. But there are only two locations (in Charlotte and Jacksonville), making that business way too small to reasonably absorb the costs of a NASCAR sponsorship.

We’ve seen the HendrickCars.com logos on Rick Hendrick’s entries from time to time, but the viability of selling cars online is sketchy, at best. It might get a few more folks to the dealership, but can it equate to hundreds of thousands in extras sales, enough to cover the cost of taking the car to the track? Highly unlikely.

Vehicle rental, on the other hand, lives online and via phone transactions. It’s an industry that involves reaching people directly in their homes and motivating them to give out their credit card numbers on the spot.

If you can’t sell GoPenske.com, then maybe Penske should go out of NASCAR, before he convinces others that motorsports is a lousy investment.

  • Randy

    ?????! Klingerman said what he said in reference to the Penske logos to raise awareness to the fact the “Captain” was still looking for sponsorship for the truck and his other teams. He may have conveyed it better than he did but I’ll bet my last two nickles that is what he meant. Find somehing newsworthy to write about or better yet, visit your local Saturday night and do a feature on someone there that really “could” use the help finding a sponsor.

  • http://suerarick.us Sue Rarick

    Some people see a cup half empty and others see the same cup as half full.

    When I saw the same interview you did, I had a totally different take of what Parker said. What I thought he meant was he’ll be glad when outside sponsorship was available to cover the cost of racing, rather than it being an added expense for Penske.

  • Russ

    The first rule of race car ownership is: dont use your own money. So it makes perfect sense they want somebody else to pay the bills.

    Now what that means beyond that is for each of us to decide. But obviously there is some feeling that that truck team isnt providing a return for Penske.

  • mr clause

    How about going to the source, Penske, to get the actual and complete story. See if it’s a tax liability issue, whatever, instead of your skewed take on the words or intent. I think it’s pretty evident that the “Captain” has just a little bit of business savvy. If you’re going to be a reporter then report.

  • Bob Stafford

    I agree with MR CLAUSE!!!!

  • Dennis

    I happen to agree with the author. This does seem odd that a $4 billion dollar company doesn’t want to sponsor one of it’s entries. I’ll also add that the paint scheme on that truck is awesome and easy to identify on the track. I wish more trucks and cars were as distinctive.

  • Sue

    I agree with all of the above. PLUS as a wanna be reporter, do you really want to take on the Captain and the Penske organization.

    • Um, YES.

      As a reporter, “wannabe” or not, you DO want to ask Penske for his side of the story. That’s called JOURNALISM.

      What we have here, though, is at best an editorial. It’s all opinion and conjecture.

  • http://www.robertsasse.com Robert L Sasse

    Why companies make decisions on advertising is often the direct opposite of common since to most of us. Penske has made a decision that they will not know the effects of until a later date. Advertising within a market such as racing is a fantastic opportunity for most companies if they are shown what the ROI and ROO lead to. Most team owners and marketing pros don’t dive into the metrics to find out the answers companies need to make their decisions, is it education they lack or open mindedness to find the customers they lack. Companies cut advertising first to balance budgets, when they need to tell more about their products to stay ahead of their competition. Back to front thinking for most of us.

  • Dave in Ohio

    You know, I would expect that kink of obtuse thinking from a member of mainstream “sports” press that pretends to know something about racing, but your website purports to have some knowledge of racing and you really don’t know what’s going on here?

    When you see a Penske car with the logos of any one of the many companies owned by Roger Penske, basically the owner is running the car out of his pocket for that race. They have committed to running the races, but lack an outside sponsor for a given race. So in order not to waste the valuable exposure of the marketing opportunity on the race car (truck) on that weekend by leaving the car blank, they go ahead and run the owner’s company on the car as a “sponsor”. Do you think Roger Penske is a fool and would waste that opportunity with a blank car? Obviously not.

    Now, of course they would much prefer an outside sponsor to pay the bills, so of course they want “Penske Truck Rental off the hood”. Not because it is not a valuable marketing opportunity for Penske, just that they would rather not run the car out of the owner’s pocket. Any real racer or real race fan would understand what Parker meant without me having to explain it to you. I am sure the average Speed TV viewer knew exactly what he meant.

    Got it now?