Moving Toward Product Differentiation

As a professional marketing copywriter, I always want to know 1) What the customer benefits are for any product, and 2) What the key differentiators are. Differentiators amount to "why buy Product A instead of Competitor B?"

The company that can communicate clear, compelling benefits and good differentiators usually gets the sale.I think we're seeing some real product differentiation in racing. And I think that is good.

If you like stuff like the image above, obviously you want to consume the NASCAR product. If you like the bumble-bee pack racing on a big oval, again: NASCAR. Given the way Las Vegas ended last year and the failure of big ovals to attract enough customers, I think Las Vegas was the beginning of the end for IndyCar on 1.5-mile ovals. Brutal business reality: nobody is buying the product. Even Vegas -- despite heavy promotion and ticket giveaways and relentless pushing of "story lines" -- had a disappointing turn out according to IndyCar president, Randy Bernard.

I've never been convinced lack of IndyCar oval consumers has been a question of poor promotion. I increasingly think it's a product differentiation issue, as in there isn't enough differences. Consumers of racing only have so much time and attention to give. When IndyCar is basically NASCAR without fenders, it's not going to prevail. Just not different enough. In fact, masses of people seem to LIKE the contact in NASCAR. Even if you don't like the crashes, which I don't, I am intrigued by the sort of give-and-take contact on the track that is part of the racing. Danica Patrick articulated it very well here when she said:

pressdog: Drivers seem to know -- they sort of have an unspoken or universal knowledge of what is good, and what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. Do you find that to be true?

Danica: Yeah, I do. I think that while things happen on the track and you might not even tell anyone about them, because guess what -- you'll just go out and fix it the next weekend. I mean, it's just as easy as that. And I think that probably happens within stock car racing quite a bit, and you kind of deal with it out on the track yourself, and that's the best way. Sometimes, it's also what feels the best, too, as a driver is to be able to take it into your own hands.

Given recent comments about the lone 1.5-mile track left on the schedule (Texas Motor Speedway), I now think IndyCar will soon stop racing at those size tracks. Go ahead and grieve if you have to. I know I have. But I think that's a done deal. IndyCar's differentiator, of course, are the road-and-street races. NASCAR does maybe two twisty races, so that segment is all IndyCar's.

Whether or not that is a good business proposition for IndyCar has yet to be seen. But at least the differentiation is clear. IndyCar is the 500, the road-and-street and maybe a sprinkling of small ovals. They are, pretty much, the most versatile drivers in the world. NASCAR is full-contact oval racing. They are all about contact and circles.

If you like open-wheel pack racing ... condolences. Personally, I've moved on to get my oval jollies the only from the only avaiable outlet. It's not personal, it's business.

Comments

[SmithBrianA]

I tend to agree, except with the following caveats:

A) Texas has always produced pretty good IRL-spec racing (and I use that qualifier only because of CART's issues) and open-wheel draws well there. If the safety issues are ironed out, I can see Gossage keeping IndyCars around.

B) If the new car produces decent racing at Fontana, i.e. not the last few years of the old Dallaras racing there, it might survive.

C) Small ovals, other than Iowa, haven't done well, and so you have to wonder how long they'll survive. A return to Richmond would probably help, although losing New Hampshire after a year is a bad sign.

[Jeremy]

I watched a bit of the NASCAR saturday, and the race I thought was bad. 10 laps green, big wreck, 20 laps yellow, rinse and repeat. The last three laps were cool, but I'm not a fan of wrecks. I keep thinking someone won't walk away.

[DonB]

I had never watched a NASCAR road race until the Montreal Nationwide last year and I must say, it was much more entertaining and exciting than an IndyCar road race.

[Dylan]

I disagree, because first and foremost if Indycar becomes some sort of F1 lite road racing series it's first going to have to go through the AMA Pro Racing, ALMS, and Grand Am series. Indycar has more name recognition and is a bigger deal now but I cannot see in the long run a F1 lite series beating out those aforementioned series. That's before DTM USA is thrown in. So it differentiates Indycar from NASCAR, but it puts Indycar directly against series that all produce a better on track product than Indycar's street parades and motorcycle road courses. I think the product problem with Indycar more has to do with the domination by a group of very hard to like drivers (Dario/Dixon/Briscoe). I really think the lack of "star" drivers and personalities is Indycar's #1 problem and probably the biggest thing that hurts it. Also, from an "extreme sports" standpoint, which I believe is critical, Indycar oval racing works really well.

[Dylan]

One more point. I've watched NASCAR since 2001 and it was the first form of racing I watched. BUT, I prefer Indycar oval racing a to NASCAR oval racing. Especially with the COT the 1.5 mile tracks have become rather processional. I think with the right marketing approach and maybe a few winning American's then some fans would migrate. Maybe only 1/6th of NASCAR fans would, but that would still be a huge influx of fans.

[redcar]

I think Indycar is still a good show on some ovals. It's not the length of the track, but the banking.

Interesting enough, two of my favorite NASCAR races are the two twisties.

[Leigh O'Gorman]

As a long time fan (CART, IRL & Indycar), I must admit the 1.5-mile high bank tracks do nothing for me. Just personal taste, but I find them dull.

Would I love to see IndyCar on a series of Super Speedway's and short ovals? Hell yeah, but Indy apart, no one goes to them either.

As I've said before on this blog, maybe not everything is meant to last forever. Could it be that IndyCar - as an ideological series, rather than a purely racing one - is simply irrelevant now?

[Mike R]

The split caused the decline in Indy-type open wheel racing popularity. As it declined, NASCAR filled the void. Without going into the 'blame-game' stuff, I'm still puzzled about why Milwaukee went down so badly after it had been a longstanding big crowd drawing race. It is the best track in the nation for Indy cars to draw the attention of oval fans simply because of the layout of the track and the type of racing it fosters. The only thing(s) I can attribute its decline to are the split and lack of promotion it had back in the 80s and 90s.
I believe the short ovals can rise back to the same level of popularity that they once had. The 1.5 milers never could produce the car-control type of racing that the short tracks did. They were insanity: superspeedway speeds on less-than-superspeedway length tracks. The 'wow' factor (for me, at least) was always tempered by concern that there would be tragic results at some point.
1.5's are (mostly) the perfect size for NASCAR. Atlanta, Charlotte, Texas, etc, always produce some of the most exciting races in Cup and Nationwide series.
When there was big horsepower in Open Wheel cars, the "wow" of the speed in person, even on road courses, would drop the jaws of the uninitiated and became 'the fix' that long-time fans craved. The reduction in HP that came after the split caused that to diminish a lot. If they'd get that back (yes, I understand... cost controls) they'd eventually get the fans back in the seats.