Geoffrey H Wood

After almost five years of dropping unsheathed iPhones, I finally decided to get a case for my phone. I spotted the sweet case above in a Skymall(1) magazine last month and decided it was both unique and fun (it's real leather!).

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Photo by val'sphotos from Flickr.

Still working on eliminating meat from my day-to-day diet (I think we're up to 10 days of no meat as of today). It occurred to me recently that because I'm not taking on a philosophical transformation (such as "I'm a vegetarian"), I'm just trying to change things up and maybe get a little healthier, too, that in order to be really successful with this that I needed to establish a goal. This gives me something to focus on working towards rather than focusing on what I'm not having.

The easiest goal I could come up with is to set an end date, basically, "I will completely eliminate meat from my diet until [some day in the future]". But, what date should I pick? 

I remembered hearing something in the past about the number of days in a row that one needs to do something to psychologically establish it as a habit. I quick google search, informed me that, almost universally, people think it's a mere 21 days. That doesn't seem too bad - but doesn't seem like much of a challenge either. So I upped it to a round two months which makes the goal May 17th, 2010. That's good timing since it's only a week or two before the Indy 500 - where they serve things like this:

Eric & his turkey leg at the Indy 500

What excites me about the announcement is the branding that IZOD brings to IndyCar. IZOD is a brand that brings to mind words like “premium,” “high class,” and “quality.” With their investment in IndyCar, they also want it to extend to words like “youthful,” “speed,” and “sport.”

NASCAR is currently the largest racing brand anyway that you measure it (other than history). However, this hasn’t always been the case. NASCAR built that brand over the last few decades with great sponsorship and the idea that they are the “every man’s” racing league. They feature “stock” cars – lately Chevrolet Impalas, Dodge Chargers, Ford Fusions and Toyota Camrys - which (at least externally) look like those that you see driving through your neighborhood. They appeal to the blue collar market and play up their roots in the southern states. There is nothing wrong with this and it works well for NASCAR. It also leaves a wide niche that IndyCar should exploit.

That niche is people who want the ultimate in racing; people who like the fact that IndyCars are built to be speed machines, specifically, and not the “stock” car in your neighbor’s driveway. They want machines that drive 230 mph. They want quality, high class, premium racing. That is why IZOD is a great match for IndyCar.

This will turn off some IndyCar fans that would prefer that IndyCar appeal to the core NASCAR fan base. These will be the people calling into radio shows to complain about the cost of an IZOD shirt. However, I believe the potential to attract fans to a “premium” racing market is far greater than potential to convert the self-identified blue collar NASCAR fans.

I think the “premium” play is the best one for IndyCar in the long term and the sponsorship from IZOD helps establish that brand. They don’t need to be the biggest, they don’t need to be the most widespread, they simply need to be the best. It’s worked for Apple. 

(Go back to Part One)

There’s a lot of buzz in the racing world about the announcement last week of IZOD as a title sponsor for the IndyCar Series. IZOD has been involved with IndyCar since 2008, as both “the official apparel sponsor” of the series and as a personal sponsor for driver Ryan Hunter-Reay.

IZOD fills the role of name sponsor for the top open-wheel series run within the Indy Racing League much like Sprint fills the role for the top equivalent in fender-racing (for those who like association games: IZOD is to IndyCar as Sprint is to NASCAR). Firestone has been on board for years for the open-wheel development series (to continue the game: Firestone is to IndyCar as Nationwide is to NASCAR).

Much of the talk has been about how what the sponsor tangibly brings to IndyCar such as distribution through hundreds upon hundreds of Macy’s stores, an increased advertising buy as part of IZOD’s parent Philips-Van Heusen gigantic spend, and (with a 6 year commitment) validity of the series’ economic health over the next several years.  That’s not to mention the straight up cash that’s being routed to the teams and the good folks at the IMS.

(Continue to part two)

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