Fast cars and superstars make for reality TV, Part 1 (cont'd)

Sounds easy enough, right? The Young Guns commercials are popular, and the newest one, where newcomer Kahne gets "clipped" by the veterans, debuted during the Super Bowl.

But why NASCAR? Gillette has made inroads into the estimated 75 million fans of the sport and if you want experiential, then NASCAR is the place you need to be.

"Racecars really embody the winning spirit of Gillette, which is all about confidence, performance and striving to be your best and that's what racing is really all about," is the way Steve Fund, global business director for Gillette, chose to put it.

"The power of this idea is the colliding of two worlds," Fund said. "We were very careful in terms of the superstars that we picked. We wanted to get a wide range of celebrities that were superstars in their own realm. Tony Hawk is a superstar skateboarder. Ty Murray is a superstar in rodeo. Serena Williams is a superstar in the world of tennis.

"We wanted to get range of superstars that had a passionate fan base, so we could optimize that passion that each of those celebrities has to maximize the impact of the program."

Gillette has taken the concept and thrown virtually everything in the corporate arsenal at it to make it a happening, rather than just four hours of TV programming.

"We've supported the Young Guns since 2004 in a number of different ways, through traditional advertising, at retail through special promotion packs and in print advertising," Fund said. "This is bringing the marketing effort behind this property to a whole new level.

"This program has many different facets to it, so it isn't just about a great network prime-time series. There's a lot of components, from internet activation of our GilletteYoungGuns.com site that drives millions of users, we're going to have a featured section on the TV show that we're partnering with AOL on to display content. We're going to have retail activation; we have a number of different retailers who are going to activate. We have a consumer promotion where the consumer gets to choose which world they want to live in, the world of NASCAR or the world of celebrity. We have a whole PR activation program, and some of the partners we've taken are going to promote the show in various ways.

"There are lots of tentacles to the marketing plan."

Among the celebrities involved in the series are actress Krista Allen, former NBA champion John Salley, Super Bowl-winning quarterback John Elway, WWE wrestling champion John Cena, volleyball superstar and model Gabrielle Reece and legendary surfer Laird Hamilton.

Next week, we'll examine the Young Guns and their feelings on expanding NASCAR's marketing and promotional boundaries beyond the weekend and into prime time.