Aaron Rents revs up the motor…
Three years ago, we footnoted about Aaron Rent’s (RNT) sponsorship of two race car drivers who happened to be sons of a senior executive, Bill Butler, Jr. That year, the company spent about $260K on the program, which prompted me to award Aaron’s footnote of the year for 2006.
Fast forward three years to the proxy that Aaron’s filed yesterday. Butler is now the company’s Chief Operating Officer and the Butler boys — KBIII and Brett — are still being sponsored by Aaron’s. In 2008, the company spent $260K to sponsor “the son of the Chief Operating Officer as a driver for the Eddie Sharp Racing team in the ARCA RE/MAX series”. Though the company doesn’t identify which son this was, a quick search shows that it was Ken Butler III, or KBIII.
The filing also notes that this year, the company plans to spend significantly more — $1.6 million for one of Butler’s sons who will be a member of the Robert Richardson Racing Team. According to the team’s site, Butler will pilot the “No. 23 Aaron’s Chevy for 18 races this season in the NASCAR Nationwide Series.”
Of course, Aaron’s claims that the marketing benefits it gets from this are significant and worth the expense. Indeed, the company describes it as an “integral part” of its marketing. But then again, would you expect them to say anything else?
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April 8th, 2009 at 11:17 am
NASCAR marketing is very beneficial to an organization as research has shown that NASCAR patrons are some of the most brand-loyal customers out there. My employer is a NASCAR Sprint Cup sponsor and we have had enormous success at attracting new clients and interest in our organization. While we have cut back significantly on other marketing expense, we have still remained very active in this endeavor. Thanks.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
in truth, I’d say auto racing’s demographic pair up quite nicely with Aaron Rents customer base.
I agree it doesn’t look too good, but the fact is that it probably generates a lot of business for Aaron Rents .
April 8th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
@ Jeff D: Hmmmm…I vaguely remember reading somewhere not too long ago that Nascar was skewing more upscale these days. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, it would definitely seem to conflict with Aaron’s marketing strategy. And, even if Nascar is their target market, aren’t their other teams they could presumably sponsor that don’t involve the son of an NEO? Even if it’s perfectly legit, it smells like self-dealing.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Might be self-dealing, might be the guy is a good driver. I was only responding to the fact that there are tangible marketing benefits to NASCAR sponsorship. Thanks.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
There is a lot of abuse disguised as “marketing”. I attend concerts sponsored by Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Nice for me but I feel it is not right that a company uses their clients money to better it’s image. they should rather offer more benefits to earn a better image and if they have money left over they should refund it to those who came up with the money in the first place.
It all comes down to lack of morals. Business people just think it is OK to milk others and use their money without restrictions. That form of capitalism just stinks which is not to say that socialism is any good.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Nepotism anyone? Why don’t these boys compete on their merits with other teams?
April 11th, 2009 at 10:08 am
On a smaller scale I’ve worked with million dollar ad budgets, focus groups, advertising agencys and ego driven business owners.
Any rationalizing of this being a successful ad campaign probably comes from the ad agency skewing the way the questions were asked in their research to justify the money spent in thier recommended ad mediums (higher profits for radio & TV promotions than newspaper print advertising) and an owner turning a blind eye because it was his kids.
Unless there is a coupon of some sort being turned in at time of purchase that shows where the coupon came from, a web site address that’s tied to the campaign or a code # that’s connected to the promotion it’s awful hard to tie an ad campaign to a specific purchase.
I can think of dozens of ad campaigns over the years that were more successful in building an owners ego than in creating additional profits for the company.
July 3rd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Yes it must be great to sponcer a nascar by screwing the people that rent and
buy from you jerks.