Auto racing is a uniquely visceral experience. There is nothing like the sights, sounds and smells of race day.  So to activate its motorsports sponsorships and drive brand preference among race fans, Sunoco captured the essence of racing and bottled it. Sunoco’s 2015 Burnt Rubbér cologne campaign broke conventions for automotive fuel, auto racing and sports sponsorships marketing, and captivated motorsports and pop-culture fans across the country.  The campaign boldly distinguished Sunoco, increasing brand preference and other key brand health measures, while competitive fuel brands remained flat or declined over the same time period. Ahhhh, the sweet smell of victory.

We engaged a handful of key influencers and editors to have them experience the cologne for themselves. The resulting PR coverage connected Sunoco to tens of millions of consumers across motorsports, fashion, lifestyle and general interest media. The smallest investment with the largest return.

Additionally, we used broadcast television to take advantage of its broad reach by running during races and shoulder programming to introduce fans to this new product and to drive them to our digital properties for deeper engagement.

Programmatic digital allowed us to target very specific fan attributes and to serve up precisely the right content and context.

We used paid social to seed and promote dynamic video content on Sunoco Racing’s Facebook and Twitter channels. We went a step further and created social content specifically for our star drivers and race sanction partners to post, extending the social reach of the campaign exponentially.

Generated Brand Preference. Achieved increases across all key brand metrics when competitors spending as much as 10x more were flat/down. 1/1 was baseline for brand metrics, before racing season started. Looked at mid-campaign brand metrics (July) and assessed sustained equity as of 8/31/15.

Differentiated Sunoco from Competitors. Fielded online study among 950 motorsports fans and assessed their impressions of Sunoco before and after exposure to TV. Goal was to position Sunoco as decidedly different than typical “Big Oil” brands.

Top-2 % Pre- Post- Lift

Modern & innovative 80.59 87.58 6.99

Fun & Approachable 74.59 84.08 9.49

Created Buzz. Nearly 1:1—135MM paid impressions to 122MM earned impressions through PR and social. Brand Index Buzz showed 5 point lift among Motorsports fans versus non-fans (-5 pt. decline) and competitor Brands – ExxonMobil (-8 pts), Chevron (-9 pts), BP (-6 pts) and Shell (-14 pts).

Also saw Burnt Rubbér on eBay for $1000.