How can the U.S. Army sponsor a race car? Is this car being sponsored by US taxpayers?
Obviously the army feels it would be the most cost efficient way to increase recruitment numbers.
No different to running TV ads, I don’t understand your problem.
More importantly, are there vehicles to which our own military is inferior?
Gentlemen, what we have here is a dragster gap! This can not stand!
The Army also sponsors Joe Nemecheck’s entry in Nextel Cup.
Whoops, bad link. Let’s try this one.
I worked on this account, but before the sponsorship of the race car.
In general, these sponsorships can be pretty efficient at reaching young males, which is part of the Army’s target. They have an advertising and marketing budget, which is used in many ways, including TV, magazine, newspaper, radio and other ads.
Motorsport is one of the fastest-growing environments for young men. It’s a WAG, as I haven’t worked on the account in nearly 10 years, but I think their sponsorship is used to keep the Army top of mind with folks who watch these drag meets on TV and IRL. It may also serve as a reminder for potential recruits of the training one can get in the Army.
Well, Tony Schumacher won the 2004 championship.
And the Post Office sponsored Lance Armstrong for something like six years. Think of that the next time the price of stamps goes up! (Or you see a mailman on a bike.)
All the services are involved in motorsports sponsorship of one form or another. The Air Force is a part time sponsor of Ricky Rudd. The National Guard is a sponsor of Greg Biffle. In the Busch series, the Navy sponsors David Stremme, the Marines sponsor Ashton Lewis, and the Coast Guard sponsors Justin Labonte.
Numerous public agencies have publicity and promotions budgets, of which they try to maximize the impact. The government-agency sponsorship contracts will have some extra conditions such as morals clauses, buy-American clauses, wardrobe-stays-fully-functional clauses, “don’t call George W. a moron on a Morning Radio show” clauses, etc. Sure, if a sponsoree turns out to be up to something shady anyway, then it’s egg in the agency’s face (or if the Marines-sponsored team’s bus skids off a bridge and they have to be fished out of the river by the Coast Guard)
The military has to compete in the labor market for recruits, and their major target segment is males 17-25 (and if they are well-disposed to loud, exciting, high-risk activites, well, that’s icing on the cake). Sponsoring racing teams is excellent, uh, bang for the buck, as THespos stated.
So the branches of the military have marketing budgets, and some use race cars as advertising. OK, I guess I can deal with that, anything’s better than a popup ad.
Only somewhat related but - The Edmonton Police Force has a drag racer (random link) that they use to encourage would-be street racers to do that kind of thing at the track. Your state police (I’m assuming US residency) may do something similar also.