Opinion

Quicken's Daytona Strategy a Winner

Quicken Loans was undisputably the winner of the Daytona 500−not the race itself, which was won by Jimmie Johnson−but of the post-race marketing display.

For those of you who are uninitiated to the ritual seen at almost any American auto race, the post-race interviewer sticks his microphone into the driver’s mouth, where the driver then talks about his race in the Name-your-sponsor-here, secondary-sponsor-here, etc., Ford-Chevy-Toyota. At the same time, there is a flunky tasked with changing the baseball caps on the driver’s head on a regular basis.

Ryan Newman, who for 18 races this season Quicken will be the primary sponsor (including at Daytona) and an associate sponsor for the rest, used the bulk of his post-race face time on Fox, not to talk about how he finished fifth with a last lap charge, but about Quicken Loans and its Bring it Home sweepstakes.

Every time Newman has a top five finish (as at Daytona), Quicken will pay five peoples’ mortgages for a month. Newman was able to get in the website before being cut-off by the interviewer.

Newman’s post-race performance was everything Quicken (or any lender) would desire from their celebrity endorser.

By the way, Quicken is also the associate sponsor of Newman’s car owner, Tony Stewart, and of Danica Patrick. And lest we forget, Patrick’s sponsor during her early career in open wheel racing was Argent Mortgage, a relationship the now-defunct subprime wholesaler got some good marketing mileage from.

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