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Gillette and NASCAR Ink Multi-Year Deal

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By: TOM BRANNA

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The Gillette Company today announced it has signed a multi-year marketing and promotional agreement with six top young drivers – dubbed the Gillette Young Guns – from the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). Gillette also will partner with NASCAR as an Official Status Sponsor in the Shaving Products, Alkaline Battery and Oral Care categories.

The six Gillette Young Guns are Kurt Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, and Ryan Newman. Kenseth clinched the NASCAR Winston Cup championship last week in Rockingham, N.C., while the other five drivers sit in the Top 10 of the point standings.

Gillette will leverage the Gillette Young Guns and its NASCAR sponsorship with a comprehensive marketing communications program on several levels throughout the 2004 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup season. The program includes consumer promotions and retail events, a national sweepstakes, dedicated NASCAR print and broadcast advertising, licensing, interactive on-line consumer promotions, charitable contributions and hospitality. The activities will encompass multipleGillette brands.

“This is a landmark initiative for The Gillette Company, a dynamic 21st-century extension of our sports marketing heritage,” said John F. Manfredi, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, The Gillette Company. “Our investment of more than $20 million will enable us to reach tens of millions of our consumers through a great partnership with NASCAR and with six of the very best race car drivers in the world, young men who define excellence in the same way that our world-class products do.”

Consumers are invited to celebrate the new Gillette NASCAR partnership by participating in The Gillette Young Guns $5 Million Challenge. This exciting promotion offers race fans a chance to win $5 million during next season’s Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway on Memorial Day Weekend and again at the season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November. The Gillette Young Guns must finish one through six in either race, and a consumer must have chosen the correct order of finish to collect the prize. If there is a $5 million consumer winner, Gillette also will donate $5 million to the National Prostate Cancer Coalition.

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