© All rights retained by Leon Botha 2013/2014 onwards. A Squirt of Adrenaline into sponsorship… INDEX 3 INTRODUCTION 4 THE TRICK TO GET REAL VALUE 6 RALLYSTAR MOTORSPORT ACADEMY 7 WHAT IS RALLYCROSS? 8 RALLYCROSS TODAY 10 THE RACE FORMAT 11 SO WHY SPONSOR RALLYCROSS 13 RALLYCROSS WILL WORK FOR SPONSORS 14 HOW CAN WE MAKE SPONSORSHIP WORK 15 A FULL ON MEDIA COMMUNICATION PLAN 16 RELATIONSHIP MARKETING CONTACT DETAILS Leon Botha CEO Rallystar Email: [email protected] Mobile: 082 555 3119 Alanie Botha-Austin Marketing and Public Relations Rallystar Email: [email protected] Mobile: 082 562 8289 Websites: www.rallyx.co.za www.rallystar.co.za © All rights retained by Leon Botha 2013/2014 onwards. A Squirt of Adrenaline into sponsorship… © All rights retained by Leon Botha 2013/2014 onwards. A Squirt of Adrenaline into sponsorship… INTRODUCTION In 2011 Rallying celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first ever rally held, The Monte Carlo Rally, better known as the “Mother of all Rallies”. In the past century rallying, like many other sporting codes had to undergo dramatic changes. Most of which were the result of the changes in the dynamics of society, in short the way in which people spent their leisure time changed and our daily lives became technically controlled. This obviously affected advertising and competition for market share became so intense that many companies have run out of ideas? In SA we have the added problem that a relatively small market is flooded with unlimited products and services, as the world fights for a share of our market. This caused some great products or ideas to fade away without representing the success it achieved overseas. Very few, even strong brands, make it in our market place while some established companies will confess that the fight for market share is more hectic than ever before! Recent marketing research clearly showed that customer loyalty is fading at an alarming rate in many areas. There are simply too many alternatives to try out before perhaps returning to the “old faithful” again. A great advertising campaign may still have the magic results come at a premium cost in most cases. This risk caused many companies to look for alternative options and a growing number of companies found the answer to this marketing problem in sponsorship. Without going into specifics we can confidently say that sport sponsorships are becoming more popular drawing bigger money to major sport all the time! The right budget can let a company name appear on TV for 80 minutes during for instance rugby broadcast with added repeat bonus programs. There is no need for further motivation for the incredible branding and other values linked to sport sponsorships. Fact is that sport sponsorship already exceeds traditional advertising spend. 3 © All rights retained by Leon Botha 2013/2014 onwards. A Squirt of Adrenaline into sponsorship… THE TRICK TO GET REAL VALUE Allow us to take you back a number of years. Many will recall the severe criticism so-called “one day cricket” received when it started out. Coloured clothing on a cricket field – that bordered on blasphemy? Then a well-known cigarette company had a vision of what this new found fun and enjoyment could mean for their brand! Benson & Hedges creating their fame and fortune overnight is history! We all wanted to go and share in the fun of braai, beer, girls and cricket –it looked good in any sequence and it was! Benson & Hedges did not only manage to create a great branding vehicle, they created the mystique around a great game! South Africans found alternative entertainment to rugby – in cricket! I have often wondered why this and other “habits” work so well in SA? Why did “everybody” go to Durban, Margate and Lorenzo Marques for holidays, why did the people in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Witwatersrand go to 4 © All rights retained by Leon Botha 2013/2014 onwards. A Squirt of Adrenaline into sponsorship… Bapsfontein on Saturday evenings to dance and on Sundays to listen to country music and have fun in the small amusement park at that venue? Why was the “Rand Easter Show” an institution, why was Sunday Picnic at the Fountains in Pretoria or Warmbath so popular? These days you hardly hear people discuss anything but overseas trips, an evening at a good restaurant or some other “once off” events? Have “habit” and “traditional” disappeared making way for something else? Is the search for an alternative on again? Fact is that trend or fashion - the need to be "in" and do the "right" things are getting stronger every day! It is time to take the lead and re-invent an event that will become tradition again? Yes, the time has arrived to introduce something new and exciting, an activity in line with the modern trends and social demands and it is called “adventure”! Surveys show that the modern consumer wants to share extreme excitement, get as close as possible to the action, actually be right there where and when it happens and be able to share the "moment" with the hero without taking any risks! We are in the era of “I want to be the hero, but do not want to get hurt!” 5 © All rightsrights retained by Leon Botha 2013/2014 onwards. A Squirt of Adrenaline into sponsorship… RALLYSTAR MOTORSPORT ACADEMY Some eight years ago, Leon Botha, a well-known member of the rally fraternity, saw the need to establish a facility that would offer motorsport enthusiasts and competitors a venue to test and set up off-road race vehicles, get some training and also entertain the public in other disciplines of rallying! He developed Rallystar Motorsport Academy in Bapsfontein near Johannesburg where he introduced Rally Sprint events, self-drive programmes and opportunities for corporate business organisations to spend their leisure time, offering opportunities for team building, hosting of important clients, and giving people and organisations opportunity to experience the thrill of sitting in and even driving high performance rally cars. The facility has also been used by the country’s foremost rally competitors as a testing ground for their cars and on occasion, like recently, overseas World Rally Championship competitors have been to the Academy to use the testing facilities and they were suitably impressed, rating the facility as one of the Top Three in the world! The Academy has proved that there was a definite need for such a facility. Leon then decided to take the activities presented at the Rallystar Motorsport Academy to a next level introducing Rallycross to South Africa. 6 WHAT IS RALLYCROSS? Tanner Foust a Rally America Rallycross champion describes it in this way: “Rallycross is so much fun, it is like a real life video game. The cars and drivers are mean and aggressive, and the racing is an incredible challenge.” The sport started as a TV show, produced by Robert Reed of ABC television for ITVs World of Sport. This TV show took place at Lydden Circuit (between Dover and Canterbury) in Great Britain on Saturday, 4 February 1967. The first ever true RallyCross was organised by Bud Smith with the aid of Lydden Circuit owner Bill Chesson, and was won by later Formula One driver as well as 1968 Rally Monte Carlo winner Vic Elford in a showroom Porsche 911 of the British importer AFN, ahead of Brian Melia in his Ford Lotus Cortina and Tony Fall in a BMC Mini Cooper S. After that inaugural event there were another two test Rallycross events at Lydden, on 11 March and 29 July, before the new World of Sport Rallycross Championship for the ABC TV viewers started with round one on 23 September, to be followed by round two on 7 October. The series was run over a total of six rounds and was eventually won by Englishman Tony Chappell (Ford Escort TwinCam), who became the first ever British Rallycross champion after winning the final round of the new series on 6 April 1968 at Lydden. 7 © All rights retained by Leon Botha 2013/2014 onwards. A Squirt of Adrenaline into sponsorship… RALLYCROSS TODAY The largest competition nowadays is the FIA European Championships for Rallycross Drivers and proof of that is that during the weekend of 7th September 2014 the 100th driver joined the show! Nordic drivers have dominated RallyCross since the end of the 1970s1) FIA European Rallycross Championship (ERC) cars are built based on production car body shells but are extensively modified, some capable of 0-100km/h in less than 2seconds! 2) 1)Names as Martin "Mister Rallycross" Schanche (Norway), Olle Arnesson (Sweden), Matti Alamäki (Finland), Kenneth "His Kennyness" Hansen (Sweden) and Per Eklund (Sweden) as some of the more famous. British drivers to win European rallycross titles were the first ever European RX champion, Scotsman John Taylor (in 1973) and the two Englishmen Will Gollop (in 1992) and Richard Hutton (in 1994). 2) A typical leading ERC series car, Per Eklund's Saab 9-3 Turbo 16 4x4 technical specifications are a 2-litre turbocharged 4-cylinder 16-valve engine with a 45 mm turbo restrictor rated at +550 bhp (410 kW) and 800 N·m (590 lb·ft) of torque, four-wheel drive with programmable active differentials and six-speed gearbox, 1,200 kg (2,600 lb) (current FIA regulations) and will do the 0–100 km/h (about 0–62 mph) sprint in less than 2.5 seconds, thereby roughly as fast as a Formula One racer (capable of 0-60 mph in 2.3 seconds, some other ERC Division 1 cars are already claimed by their drivers to need even less than 2 seconds.