Sampling and Demos: Put the Product in Their Hands

A logo on a race car can make someone recognize a brand. It almost never makes them try it. Most people don't buy a drink, a hand cleaner or a fuel additive they've never used, which is why so many sponsors care less about how many people saw their decal than about how many people got the product in their hands.

That's where a racer can be more useful than any billboard. You're at the track, in front of a crowd that already likes cars and the things that go in them. If you hand out the sample, run the demo or make the sale yourself, you're doing the part of marketing that's hardest for a brand to do from a distance.

There are now two kinds of sampling

Eric Seibold of ITW Permatex told the Motorsports Sponsorship Summit that the old way still matters, and a new way has joined it. "There's almost two kinds of sampling these days, right? Traditional sampling was always just like at the track in the pits handing out the trial size of products," he said. "And we still do that for sure, and that's still important to us. But there's this other sort of, I don't know, I'm coining a new phrase here, but this digital sampling thing where you can't get the physical product in everyone's hand, but you can demonstrate it for them online and digitally."

Digital sampling, in his description, is a product demonstration filmed and posted: people can't touch it, "but they're still getting the message and seeing it." For a racer, that means every time you use a sponsor's product on camera in the shop or the pits, you're sampling it to everyone who watches. ▶ Watch Eric Seibold on this

Take the sample to the store

Seibold's favorite version of traditional sampling doesn't happen at the track at all. "If you have a race in a certain city that weekend and you have the opportunity to visit an O'Reilly or an Advance store with your car and show the car out front, that helps that store out, but you can also sample our products there," he said. "So that's a unique thing that some of our partners have done in the past." ▶ See the full answer

Megan Meyer, the two-time NHRA world champion, built a whole partnership around that idea with the Menards home-improvement chain. Her team would park the race car at the front of a store and hand out samples of products Menards was introducing, including an energy drink. "Our deal with Menards was we would bring the racecar and do displays and hand out samples of the drinks," she told the Drag Racing Sponsorship Summit. "We would have that right in the front of the store when you walk in. And then the store would have those drinks on the shelves right there for the customers to throw it into their carts, or be at an end cap at the checkout register."

That last detail is what made it work. A shopper tried the drink, saw the race car and found the product a few steps away. The logistics were simple, too. "We would go to the stores the day before the race started, unload the car out of the trailer, set it up, be there for about two to three hours and then load up and then head on over to the racetrack. We do this probably five times a year." ▶ Watch Megan Meyer walk through it

Let people feel the difference

Some products can't be handed out in a paper cup. For those, the sample is an experience. Matt Martelli, CEO of the Mint 400, singled out one sponsor's demo as the best he's seen. "They take a user and they put them in a vehicle and they drive around an obstacle course with three different shocks set up so that they can feel what their product does," he said of the shock company Fox. "And that's time consuming and it's expensive, but every single one of those people who sits in that seat comes away with that light bulb moment of like, okay, I understand a stock vehicle feels like this and an enhanced vehicle feels like that. That to me is really the ultimate type of activation."

The principle applies well beyond shocks. "I think the best way to engage with consumers is to get physical interaction because then it's more of a tangible interaction and that person has that embedded in their memory," Martelli said. ▶ Watch Matt Martelli on demos

A grassroots team can't build an obstacle course, but it can offer a ride-along, let fans hold the part before and after, or set two components side by side and explain the difference. Anything that lets a fan feel what the product does beats a banner.

Turn the parking lot into a demo

Kevin Miller, then president and CEO of USAC, described a demo that cost almost nothing and reached far past the grandstands. Several USAC drivers were sponsored by an oil company. "We're like, hey, why don't you guys change oil in the parking lot during the fans when they come in? Let's do a promotion. One of the fans win an oil change on behalf of the driver. Let the driver change your oil in the parking lot," he told the summit. "We'll film it, put it in our production. And we can play that on Flow where there's 40,000 to 50,000 people watching that night." ▶ Watch Kevin Miller describe it

One oil change became three things at once: a product demonstration, a fan prize and a segment on the race broadcast. It also shows Seibold's two kinds of sampling working together. The fan in the parking lot gets the real thing, and everyone watching the stream gets the digital version.

Sell it while they're standing there

Sampling creates interest, and interest fades. Martelli thinks too many brands let it fade by sending people home to buy later. "Why not get their money then? Especially with smaller items," he said. "People are showing up to events nowadays with money in hand with the expectation that products are gonna be available." In a world where online orders arrive within hours, he asked, "Why would that same consumer then come to an event and think that it's okay to look at some product and then days, weeks, months later, hope that you're converting that into sales? That's a bad marketing plan." ▶ Watch the clip

If a sponsor's product is small enough to carry, ask whether you can stock some at your table, or at least hand out a code that works that day.

Keep sampling after the weekend

Chris Bishop, whose family drag racing team is sponsored by Seafoam, does both kinds of sampling. At the track, "we give out a lot of samples. They always send us the boxes," he said, and his team has handed Seafoam product packages to event winners. Away from the track, Seafoam asks for regular photos and short videos of each product, and the brief is specific. "They want me to show it being used in an everyday setting. It's not necessarily throughout any motorsports or drag racing or anything like that," Bishop said. "They want to put it over to the end user. Not everybody relates to motorsports or drag racing." ▶ Watch Chris Bishop on Seafoam

That's digital sampling done the way the brand wants it: a racer showing the product solving a problem the customer actually has.

The takeaway

• Ask each sponsor whether it wants trial, and offer to hand out samples at every event on your schedule.
• Book a store visit near each race, with the car out front and samples at the door.
• Build a simple demo that lets fans feel what a product does, from a ride-along to a side-by-side.
• Film every demo and product use so it samples online too.
• Ask whether you can sell small items or hand out a same-day code at your table.