Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
Since Pinty’s announced they were taking over as entitlement sponsor for NASCAR Canadian series, there’s been a buzz of excitement in the air that was perhaps missing over previous seasons.
The sponsor’s commitment to the series is probably the reason as Tony Spiteri, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Research and Development for Pinty’s, came right out of gate stating that they were going to do what it took to get the drivers of the series known to fans.
Since then, commercials have aired on TSN throughout NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and XFINITY Series broadcasts, featuring the stars of the NASCAR Pinty’s Series, like Jason Hathaway and Gary Klutt. This is just stage one in Spiteri’s plan to continue to build the tour.
“Social media is going to be important,” he told OnPitRoad.com on Wednesday. The news coverage will be big. I think of the Toronto Star, for example, with coverage moving to the sports page versus just on digital media, as well as agencies that are promoting by electrically and print. I mean, this is all going to help us. We’re also doing television and it’ll look a lot more like the broadcasts from the.
Spiteri notes they plan to take it a step further by getting the teams involved in their plans.
“The biggest part that we see that nobody has tapped into is we’re trying to enlist the teams themselves to market the series,” he said. “Market your team, market the series. Now if we all do that, now we have the power of 33 to 35 teams across Canada, which could give ammunition to do that.”
Their marketing package has brought attention, but that shouldn’t be a surprise. They have been catching attention since joining as a contingency sponsor in 2012, which grew to sponsoring race events, to now sponsoring the whole ordeal.
“We saw the benefits of that initial spend and investment, with some return from that,” Spiteri said. “When the opportunity came to step up and take the series, we did a soul check in how this will fit long-term with NASCAR. We met with the teams to see what some of their dreams and desires are and interesting enough, when you can strip away their individual needs, everybody is the same. They’re all looking for the same thing.
“So we felt we could be the center of that in that if we could look after everybody’s interest, we could all benefit. I’m excited along with the drivers.”
Their commitment to the series grew one more step this week, as they announced on Wednesday they will sponsor the event on the streets of Toronto – the Pinty’s Grand Prix of Toronto.
“Obviously we’re the series sponsor, but we saw an opportunity to give a pump up to one of the crown jewels in Canada – we’re blessed to have many of them,” he said. “We have bunch of historic tracks that we run at it. It’s pretty exciting for us and the whole company. We plan to have a lot of our staff out here enjoying the race with us so I think it’s going to be a pretty cool weekend.”
Though before the series can take to Toronto in July, they will kick off their 2016 campaign this weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park with the season opener.
“I’m pure objectively excited,” Spiteri said. “The race at CTMP is always exciting and I think if you take a look at the last three years, that race has been won not the last lap, but the last 300 feet – some winners, some may not be so excited about it. But at the end of the day, that’s what will help build our sport. Races that go green-white-checkered – nobody gets excited about. Races that finish with 15 car length lead – great for the team, but not for the fans. But races that end up with teams fighting for every square inch on the last lap –and more importantly the last 200 feet, that’s what makes television.
“So I’ll be shocked if we don’t see something like that.”
