Give your backside a rest: 'Be Kind to Your Behind'

When lap 100 rolls around on Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway, don't be surprised if you see the entire crowd standing up all at once, no matter what is happening on the track.

They're being kind to their behinds.

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At least, that's what Kimberly-Clark associate brand manager Kelly Stephenson hopes will happen. Stephenson's product is Cottonelle bathroom tissue, and the Cottonelle Lap 100 Stretch is designed to help NASCAR fans take care of a part of their bodies that often is ignored.

"With three-hour races and hard metal seats, watching a NASCAR race can be tough on bottoms," Stephenson said. "The Cottonelle brand encourages fans to consider these rigors and participate in the Cottonelle Lap 100 Stretch -- another thing fans can do is be more kind to their behind.

"It's kind of like a seventh-inning stretch for NASCAR fans."

For those fans who won't be at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday, there's a chance for them to be kind to their behinds in California.

Fans can go to www.cottonelle.com and enter to win the "Be Kind to Your Behind" sweepstakes, grand prize for which is a luxury vacation for two at a five-star resort in California, according to Stephenson.

Consider the following: The drivers competing in the O'Reilly 300 Nationwide Series event on Saturday will spend a combined 86 hours, 36 minutes and 14 seconds on their behinds during the event. If all 143,822 fans in the stands sit for the majority of the race, they'll be on their behinds for 299,189 hours, 24 minutes and 30 seconds.

That's a lot of sitting, so Cottonelle is trying to help by putting on this promotion, which not only celebrates the Cottonelle Ford Fusion driven by Brad Coleman, but parent company Kimberly-Clark's 14-year history in the Nationwide Series.

Much is made of NASCAR's fan base, as large and as diverse a group as there is in all of sport, but Kimberly-Clark is after a certain segment of that fan base, according to Jean-Maurice Boyer, Kimberly-Clark's racing manager.

"The fan base is fantastic, and although people don't always think of reaching female consumers through NASCAR, we've found that you can do it and at a moment in her busy life where she might spend a little time with our brand," Boyer said.

Kimberly-Clark boasts among its brands Kleenex, Cottonelle, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex and Depends, and its array of products are must-have items in many households. NASCAR, with its family orientation and history of family travel to and from races, is right in the company's wheelhouse.

Fast facts

What	O'Reilly 300
When	Green, 3:16 p.m. ET Saturday
TV	ESPN2, 2:30 p.m. ET
Radio	PRN (Sirius Ch. 28), 3 p.m. ET

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"We have a number of different sponsorships and licensing agreements, outside of NASCAR, but our NASCAR sponsorship has been one of the most flexible in terms of being able to evolve our needs and the changing needs of our retail partners," Boyer explained. "We've found that as our needs change, we can adjust our involvement and still maintain that sponsorship as our anchor and then complement around it with various tactical elements that help us be successful.

"We also have a very strong focus on the partnerships we have with various retailers and the volume that is associated with those promotions that we secure by bringing NASCAR as one of the tactical elements to our discussions with them."

"We will have Brookshire's on our car and we are very proud of our relationship with them," Boyer said of the supermarket chain in Texas. "We also partner with Kroger in that area."

Like any large company spending millions of dollars to advertise and market to a specific demographic, Kimberly-Clark spends a lot of its time analyzing the effects of said efforts on the consumers it's trying to reach.

"We look at a number of different metrics, but at the end of the day, our goal is to bring consumers into our franchise of brands and get them to appreciate the value our brands can bring to their lives, so we look for measurements of that nature," Boyer said. "We have ways of segmenting NASCAR fans versus non-NASCAR fans and understanding how a NASCAR consumer's purchasing behavior can be changed as a result of that sponsorship."

One way in which Boyer and Stephenson hope to influence customers is by providing them a seat cushion for Saturday's race, with the "Be Kind to Your Behind" logo on it.

When you get right down to it, attending a NASCAR race is an exercise in sitting, as delineated above. Drivers especially have it rough, as the temperature is sometimes in the 140-degree range inside the car.

Cottonelle is so serious about being kind to your behind that it has provided the carbon-fiber racing seat that Coleman sits in during the races, complete with various padding to make him comfortable.

NASCAR fans are experts at sitting, though at Texas they're usually on their feet more than sitting down. If a fan were to attend all Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series events in 2008, he or she would spend about 243 hours, 57 minutes and 47 seconds on their behinds in the stands.

After Texas, thanks to Cottonelle, that fan would have at least one seat cushion with which to be kind to his or her behind. Remember, be kind to your behind and stand up at Lap 100 on Saturday!