We all know that advertising helps sell cars. But in addition to auto racing, Volvo has spent the last seven years sponsoring a much wetter and longer event.
Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday
Since day one, automobile companies have sponsored various events to get their name out to the public. Auto racing is undoubtedly the most popular sponsored event. This can be traced back to before the turn of the century when, according to Henry Ford Museum archives, Harvey Firestone, realizing the marketing potential of racing, had his tires fitted to an English racing buggy (pulled by a horse) and began competing in street races.
Borrowing a page from Harvey’s marketing philosophy; Volvo has, if you’ll excuse the pun, taken another “tack” when it comes to racing by sponsoring, since 2001, a globe-circling sailboat race.
photo courtesy Rick Tomlinson/Volvo Ocean Race
Volvo Ocean Race
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Volvo Ocean Race, which will start in Alicante, Spain on October 11th. In all, 8 confirmed boats will take part in the grueling event that covers 36,995 nautical miles in 10 legs, plus 7 in-port races, before finishing in St. Petersburg, Russia on June 27th of 2009.
No infield or corporate suites
For you car race fans out there, you may notice the one small detail that might make watching this event less exciting than, say, the Indianapolis 500 – most of it takes place hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from any spectators.
So to make the race more exciting for fans, there will be a dedicated media crew member (along with 8 built-in video cameras) on each boat. To compliment this, Volvo has launched a mobile channel that supports the existing race web site and allows users to follow the race 24/7 when the boats are at sea.
How about a new Volvo for excitement?
Finally, for those armchair (or deckchair) fans who really want a piece of the action without spending millions of dollars on a racing boat, Volvo has created a “virtual” race, which is free to play and mirrors the actual race. This new web site can be found at www.volvooceanracegame.org. According to Volvo, “the competitors can create their own nine-month, 37,000 mile ocean marathon, without the salt spray and freeze-dried food.”
Just like the crews aboard the Volvo Open 70s, virtual racers will compete in real time and real weather conditions on the same race track against the Volvo fleet. They get to use the weather data available to choose their headings and sail plan. And the grand prize for all this effort? Nothing less than a new Volvo C30. Now that’s what I call excitement.
To sum it all up, I’ll use a sailing phrase for top-speed sailing:
“Have you got what it takes to haul the chili?”
photo courtesy Rick Tomlinson/Volvo Ocean Race
Tags: firestone, henry ford museum, indianapolis 500, Volvo, volvo c30, volvo ocean race, volvo open 70
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