It’s not often I see press releases that truly catch my attention. I mean something beyond the standard pre-race and post-race (which are both useful enough). The last couple of weeks I’ve seen two that had me talking – one for the good, the other for the bad.
Something different? Go Red Bull!
This one was a first – and something I’ve been advocating for for a long time. Why not get creative with your communication efforts? Everybody puts out the same formulaic pre and post-race releases with a ridiculous amount of spin. We get it, you’re trying to turn a 30th place finish into a positive thing.
Lest we be disappointed by yet another post-race we’re probably not going to read, someone finally did something about it. Thank you Red Bull!
You may have seen this – it made the rounds on twitter – after Pocono the folks over at Red Bull, instead of doing a recap of the race that we all saw, injected some humor into their release with some fun facts.
The first bit on their release read:
Pocono Raceway is like the Death Star when it comes to rain. There’s some sort of triangular tractor beam that seems to suck in ominous clouds.
Haha. What? The Death Star? It continues like that, but I had to finish reading. They even managed to sneak in some information about their teams and drivers. All in all, not bad. Check out their turn by turn Watkins Glen post-race – equally entertaining.
The beauty of this is, they’re not running great, but they’ve got people buzzing about something positive. A win-win for the team.
The clock starts now to see how fast someone steals this from them – or tries to outdo them.
Bad luck? Or the funding fell out?
Generally start-and-park teams don’t put out pre and post race releases. It’s obvious why. But I found an exception.
Michelle Theriault has been running a start-and-park for Andy Hillenburg’s Fast Track Racing. After Theriault’s first race at ORP the sponsor’s marketing company (yes, a start-and-park with a sponsor) put out a release claiming it was bad luck that forced Theriault out of the race.
From the drop of the green flag, Theriault fought a tight condition which inhibited her climb through the field. The crew planned on making adjustments on the No. 48 ProGold Lubricants Chevrolet, but bad luck struck on lap 52. A kink in a line going to the radiator caused the motor to overheat, which relegated the rookie driver to a 32nd-place finish.
A kink in the line? Bad luck? Sounds to me, as Michael McDowell put it on his twitter page a few weeks ago, the funding fell out on the front stretch.
What’s worse than being a start-and-park? Trying to pretend you’re not one. This was just plain insulting to anyone who read it – and it all but guaranteed I wouldn’t be looking at another of their releases.
Luckily, though they’ve been putting out pre-races, they quit doing the post-race.
Sometimes its just best not to say anything at all.
TheNASCARInsiders.com
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