The Absolute BRILLIANCE of NASCAR Marketing in the 90's 

Me at age 8: Became a Jeff Gordon Fan Me at age 15: Figured out what the hell Dupont is.

I used to chug Pepsi's when I was a kid during races because I thought it was gonna help Jeff Gordon win. My dad would be pissed I drank all the Pepsi, but was proud of my dedication.

As a kid I called Lowe's the Jimmie Johnson store because they sponsored him and he was my favorite driver.

I always liked the marketing idea that when Mark Martin switched from Valvoline to Viagra, the top of his #6 on his car straightened out and pointed skyward.

I never realized until today, decades later, the brilliance of the Tide livery, having Whirlpool and Downy included as cosponsors.

The absolute brilliance of Slapshoes. I wish this guy worked for Nascar

It’s funny, I feel like I had an opposite experience from most. I was a just a kid and we were on vacation to, oddly enough, Myrtle Beach. My parents had gotten some new corn chip snack I’d never heard of before, but they convinced me to try it. I loved it, and still love it to this day. Thing is, Jeff Gordon was on the bag and was sponsored by them big time at that time. My young mind thought, “Man this stuff is great, if Jeff Gordon likes it, he must be really cool!” And that’s my story on how Fritos made me into a Jeff Gordon fan for life. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

I remember Valvoline Oil being a big sponsor when I was a kid. First car I bought was a souped up 73 Firebird. Always used Valvoline. I drove the crap out of that car and tore up more sets of tires and burned out more transmissions than I can remember but never broke the engine. That was 45 years ago and I still buy Valvoline products. Advertising works.

As a 10 year old I always wanted to go to Home Depot instead of Lowe's for Tony, but my dad liked Lowe's more so I defiantly wore my Home Depot 20 hat whenever we went there to make it clear I wasn't a 48 fan.

I can remember being so excited to get a Jimmie Johnson car at Lowe’s that was in a pack of batteries.

I remember as a kid getting excited when I see a ups truck come to the house cause I knew Dale Jarret raced for ups. I remember expecting Dale Jarrett to show up in the truck cause I thought he also did deliveries 😂

"cuss one of their players is a weeb" wasn't expecting that lol

"Sure it's a *STRETCH* " [car in the advertisement stretches outwards] That had to have been intentional

Can confirm from being at the race with him at Bristol that S1ap sure does likes his Brad Lite at the races lol

Thanks to you, I will always refer to Keselowski as "Brad Lite."

Kevin Harvick fan here: I always made my parents stop at shell gas stations when we went on vacation because they were his sponsor. My first and still go to beer is/was busch because of him. I tried and now love Jimmy Johns because of him. Sponsorship works, and its a shame that companies do not see that like they used to.

I was nine when i started watching Nascar, therefore the 9 car was my favorite car (because kid logic). The 9 car was driven by Kasey Kahne, therefore he was my favorite driver. Kahne drove and was mostly sponsored by Dodge, therefore Dodge was my favorite car brand. Kids are impressionable as hell.

I liked the UPS “ we want to race the truck “

I started watching NASCAR when I was about 5, and my favorite was Dale Jr., 5 year old me had no reason to buy Beer, Energy Drinks, or join the National Guard, but Me and my mom loved him anyway.

Those eighties campaigns even worked on me down in New Zealand. Noneof those products were even for sale at my local supermarket but I knew them all and still do. Spent my life in advertising and working with novice race teams down under and I totally agree with you - it's about making heroes and staying with them for long contracts so they become the brand ambassador.

"Even Yeets dexter out of his car at one point" goddamn S1ap, that;s a beautiful sentence.

"Because I loved Mark Martin and God Damn it I wanted to see the inside of a Winn Dixie"

never understood why Mattel never got more mileage out of having Hot Wheels in NASCAR, those three or four years were too short. A stock car is such a perfect platform to have your flame logo on.

I’ve never liked nascar, never even watched it. RU-vid recommended one of your videos one day and now I can’t get enough of it! You make great videos and actually make it a lot of fun!

When you started talking about Mark you scared the hell outta me thinking you were gonna talk about Viagra

"... because one of their players is a weeb" Me : Hold on a second...

NASCAR is the reason I have a strange love for Pennzoil and Goodyear now as an adult.

You know that feeling you get when you stumble across a good video on RU-vid? Yeah I got that a minute in

Aggressive sponsorship needs to come back.

When I was a kid my favorite driver was Steve Park because I thought his car looked cool and my dad always got his oil change at Pennzoil place. To this day I still use Pennzoil because of Steve Park.

The fact that we got through this entire video without mentioning the Coca-Cola Family of Racing is something of a travesty.

I mean, my parents sat me in front of the TV watching nascar when I was two, and I picked my favorite driver then bc his car was green and on fire. Two decades later, he’s still my favorite and the only driver I follow on Twitter. Kids love a colorful cars and fire 🤷🏻‍♀️ (it was Bobby Labonte, btw)

I wasn't alive that much in the 90's (was born in 99), but I remember seeing that NASCAR marketed the hell out of the rivalry between Dale Sr. and Jeff Gordon. Like Dale had Coke, Jeff had Pepsi, Dale had Wrangler, Jeff had Levi (I think), and even Dale and Jeff would somewhat get involved and see what kind of T-shirts they can make or merchandise they can spawn. I remember when Lowes had a "build... something" program, where you got to "build Jimmie's car" when it was a block of wood in the shape of a car's body, and some wooden wheels that you have to screw into the car, along with some stickers that you would normally see from Jimmie's car (his number, hood sponsor, quarter panel sponsor, deck lid sponsor, along with the headlight and taillight sticker, and the Chevy bowtie sticker.). When looking back at it, was pretty cheap, but I was excited for it, because I thought I was actually going to see Jimmie's car or meet Jimmie or something (basically the same thing Jimmie thought as a kid when he went to a Hardee's to meet Cale Yarborough lol). But I still enjoyed it, not to mention seeing the inside of a giant store like Lowes.

Doctor: And how old are you? Me: Remember Wally Dallenbach’s Cartoon Network paint scheme? Doctor: (writes “senior citizen”.)

“Why we gotta keep turning left?” “....man, you really like Tide!” -Mitch Herberg

I actually didn’t ever become a fan of NASCAR until I was 20. Back in 2019 I discovered Emplemon’s Dale Earnhardt video, and found it massively entertaining. Suddenly I found an interest in this sport which has always fallen under my radar. Then about a month later I stumbled across your first Air Bass Speedway video, and then waited to see the other 2 as they were uploaded. I found those massively entertaining too, so I subscribed right away, and watched everything you ever uploaded, and I still do. You know what I thought of the rest of your channel? Massively entertaining of course! The more I learned about NASCAR and it’s history, the more I found myself tuning in to actual races, and found myself a favorite current driver, Kevin Harvick. I feel as though as long as Harvick drives on the track there’s a little piece of Earnhardt out there, so now I pull for him all the time. NASCAR is now my favorite sport, even though just 2 years ago I thought it was a dumb hillbilly sport

Alan Kulwicki's winning the Winston Cup in 1992, in his Hooters sponsored Thunderbird, was one of the main reasons why Hooters started opening restaurants in the Midwest, where he had previously raced (and had a huge fanbase) in ASA competition. Once again, great video!

I grew up in the 90s as well and fell in love with Terry Labonte and his relationship with Kellogg's. They did an amazing job with that partnership

All we need is just Bubba Wallace staring at the camera and just saying "Bruh."

"If you just get the children hooked onto the product of NASCAR, they'll follow the sponsors of they're favorite driver, no matter what they may be." Mark Martin and Viagra would like to have a word, Slap.

Back in 2011, I was a 10 yr old kid who was in the backseat of my parents Ford Windstar on the way to Home Depot to buy a new fridge. Outside they had the HD kids workshop, so we went there to do some arts and crafts. And there it was. The bright orange #20 Home Depot Toyota; with it’s trailer in the background with a giant image of Joey Logano. After that day, began to learn more about NASCAR and cars in general. I used to beg my parents to go to Home Depot whenever we bought anything tool or house related. I’m now 18 and I’m still a sucker for it, considering whenever I do an oil change I always buy Pennzoil. 😅

The “scared of beans” moment had me laughing so hard 😂

I remember as a kid playing NASCAR 09 on my old af PS2 and always picking Tony Stewart because of the bright orang on his car and once my dad would have to go get something from a hardware store, I always made him go to Home Depot because of that orange 20

This video makes good points about the marketing that made NASCAR number 1 back in the 90's and early 2000's. I bought 4 boxes of Wisk laundry detergent just to get 4 little cheap plastic Richard Petty cars. One thing I wished the video had touched on is what I think is the downfall of NASCAR: show cars. Back in the 90's and early 2000's, it wasn't unusual for my little hometown to be visited by at least 20 NASCAR show cars over the course of a year. The local Chevy dealership would have the Goodwrench car at least a couple of times, Wal-Mart would have Tide cars and Budweiser cars from time to time, convenience stores would have the Miller car out in front on some random Wednesday in the winter, the Havoline car would be out in front of whatever auto parts place was having a sale on Havoline oil that week. Now you don't see any of that. The only time you see a show car is at the racetrack, if you are lucky. What kind of an idiot decided that people really want to show up at a racetrack on race day to look at a show car? I can see real race cars there! I want to know that M&M's wants my money so bad they are going to pull that number 18 around to every Dollar General on the planet. You want me to buy a Big Mac and fries, McDonald's? Then you better roll that number 1 car through my local drive thru! Busch beer may taste like bull piss, but I'll buy a 12 pack if you will just send that number 4 close to my town for a couple of hours. Hell, you can't even get a Bass Pro Shops to have a show car in the parking lot and they sponsor 14 freakin' cars!

I begged my mom so MUCH back in the day to get cereal boxes that had Petty Enterprises cars in them (just after they got sponsorship with General Mills) and I still have them!

I bet when Slap becomes an old man, we all know what ED medication he is going to demand from his doctor

0:32 We all love cameos from S1ap’s cats

Kyle Petty literally got me addicted to Mello Yellow as a kid. That Mellow Yellow car will always live in my heart. I was probably 4 or 5 years old when that car was on the track. But it's been a life long love for me.

I started following Mark Martin because of the Winn Dixie car. It was where my family shopped and I ended up working there. His face and the car were all over the products we brought home, so when I started following NASCAR, he was one of the first drivers I followed.

My favorites: the old Joe Gibbs make your own paint schemes. and "I'm Jimmie Johnson, boom confetti"

As a 34 year old just getting into NASCAR, I think it has the same problem as the MLB. People find baseball boring because they don't understand it. I don't mean home runs, I mean the actual game itself between pitcher and hitter. Once that is grasped, baseball explodes with intrigue. Similarly, as I am learning NASCAR I am loving it. But it needs to be taught. I appreciated baseball because of Ken Burns documentary. It successfully tied baseball into my identity as an American. NASCAR needs this. Also, baseball succeeded before when kids played it. I remember Go Karting in the 90's all the time. NASCAR has no port of entry for their youth. Every mainstream sport has an entry port via videogames (MLB The Show keeps fans involved year round). NASCAR only has the Heat franchise which has been underwhelming, inaccessible for newcomers and not promoted alongside other sports entries. If they had an accessible gaming franchise, and ports of entry for new fans, they would regain fans. They need a game people love, like Forza, dedicated to NASCAR

I live in New Zealand, and as a kid in the 70's I was able to watch all the greats of that era at their peak (delayed telecast, obviously). But the one - and only - name I could remember as a 6 year old was Richard Petty because he drove the STP car, which was always colourful yet hardly changed from year to year. And years later, the first fuel additive I bought was STP, because the King used it. So yeah, advertising has a profound effect on children.

FINALLY. SOME ONE SAID IT. THANKYOU S1ap. Nascar really has to go back to 90s marketing techniques.

Still bummed that there was never a Cartoon Network Ed Edd 'n' Eddy car. I know my priorities.

When I was 5 back in 2010, I saw my first race and automatically became a Kyle Busch fan because of the dominant performance he had that day. I noticed he had M&M’s on the car, so being a Busch fan, it automatically became my favorite candy. This shows how effective marketing in nascar has been and too bad it isn’t really the same now.

Could not agree more with this. I grew up watching NASCAR with my dad in the 1990’s. I got hooked and we spent LOTS of time watching the sport and collecting memorabilia. Wish it was as popular as it used to be. I am the only one in my circle of friends who follow it. I do have a couple co workers who follow

"one of their players is a weeb" *Cody Ware intensifies*

Man, I remember when everything in Winn Dixie was Mark Martin branded, Chek cola with him and the car on the cans, Big 60 cookies, stickers on meat, he was everywhere.

This is something Red Bull has excelled at forever!

You missed one of my favorite sponsor driver ads, UPS and Dale Jarrett. "Drive the truck" was such a great ad in my opinion. Still such a great video tho, keep it up man!

It reminds me of when i convinced my dad to buy a case of Castrol for a wrestlemania 15 Steve Austin poster, god that pissed him off lol.

Congrats on the endorsement from Mark Martin lol

Watching this almost a year later (Hi everybody......Hope y'all are well) As a huge fan during the 90s and early 2000s who has honestly lost most, if not all, interest in NASCAR, the thing I miss the most is the personal interaction fans had with drivers. Growing up just a few miles away from Richmond, the highlight of race week was looking in the Richmond Times Dispatch that Monday and seeing who was going to do appearances that week. Seeing Bobby Hilin and shaking hands with Junie Donlavey at a Heilig-Meyers showroom.....Rusty Wallace at a local Ford dealership during his last season.....Being the last ones in line to meet both Darrel and Michael Waltrip as well as Jimmy Specncer at K-Mart......And my fondest memory was my dad and I standing in line for almost 4hrs to meet Davey Allison just a few months before his passing. You just don't see that much anymore

Mark Martin was my favorite too. I met him at a trade show one time and he was my favorite from then on.

When you open up with the best scheme ever

I would LOVE to see a Crunchyroll car in at least one race, hell maybe it could blossom into a real Nascar anime

A platform like Twitch might be a great way to boost fan involvement in the series; sponsor some drivers, those drivers have a twitch stream live during a race (with a delay to censor out information that might be advantageous to other teams, of course), and probably some really in depth coverage of post-race celebrations. iRacing could get more involved.

I agree. I'm a casual Nascar fan, but have drifted away over the years. Part of that is because every time I try to watch again, I don't recognize a single car. They change week to week

Afraid of ... BBEEAANNSS!?

I am ex-Canadian living in Wisconsin. I was at the Grand Prix in Montreal when Jean Alesi won in a Ferrari and it started a happy course riot. I remember hearing the name 'Lake Speed', but never knew he put Senna in his place.

Having a sponsor tagged with a driver, and not a team, was one of several reasons Bobby Allison drove for Richard Howard [which was actually run by Junior Johnson] in 1972; as the way Allison put it in his autobiography, one of the early questions Johnson asked Allison [paraphrasing]: 'Do you still have sponsorship ties with Coca-Cola?' As Coca-Cola, being a product brand personally sponsoring Allison, was going to be a significant financial backer to the Howard/Junior Johnson race team season.

@10:04 I'm actually really surprised nobody ran the Hornet's colors/livery from Sega's Daytona USA series. That game alone is what got me into liking stockcars as a kid. So much so that most of my toy cars from that time were various stockcar styled cars that came from various toy manufacturers.

Slapshoes, the hero we didn’t know we needed

Been watching all your videos lately and honestly you and Emplemon have gotten me fixated on nascar. soon to become a viewer myself :D

I play gran turismo Sport, and I always make my liveries like early 2000’s and 90’s NASCAR liveries. Just love the way they look!

Great topic! I remember Mattel sponsoring Kyle Petty's #45 with Hot Wheels. That fits exactly what this video hits on: marketing to kids. It was an awesome paint scheme, too! And speaking of sponsors missing the mark, remember when STP decided to no longer be a major sponsor? Did ANYONE EVER buy STP without thinking of Richard Petty? (Do you know anyone that actually bought STP at all?) (The company owner put himself into commercials... Andy Granitelli... and still shilled the connection with Richard Petty). Is anyone buying STP now? Why did UPS quit sponsoring cars? FedEx still does. Folgers and Maxwell House used to sponsor cars. People still drink coffee at home, don't they? (I do... I have canisters of both brands in the cupboard... maybe a sponsorship would shift the balance). Kellogg's Frosted Flakes had a die cast car in the box once (Terry Labonte). I got the cereal for my kids and the car for me (neener!). Same thing happened with General Mills and the Cheerios car (Johnny Benson? )Still a sale for Kellogg's and the Big G. Yet still, we do have long-time sponsors (or ones that lasted several years) for products or services I have never heard of and had to look up on the internet. How many Rheem furnaces get sold based on sponsorship of a car? What the hell is Axalta? Oh! it's really expensive automotive paint that ten people out of a million will buy... spun off from DuPont. There are some sponsorships that make zero sense. For example, XFinity sponsoring a series is just dumb. For most of their service area, they have a monopoly. So, if you lived in one of their areas and wanted cable TV, you got them. Period. Which brings me around to my thoughts on why NASCAR's fanbase is evaporating: All the races moved to a pay-TV service. Almost none of the races are televised via over-the-air signals. There's a substantial part of America that is rural and have no internet or cable service. And sometimes, when cable companies get into pissing matches with content providers in major markets, entire segments of the potential audience is lost until the deal eventually gets made.

Awesome as always! The 90's is definitely one of the interesting era in NASCAR, not just in the racing, but also sponsorships!

Hey Slap, I tried putting SPAM in Jon Bois' scrambled egg recipe. Delicious dude, you have to try it.

YOU. You got me into nascr. Haven’t missed a race since

This is absolutely facts, and an example of it working in a more modern era impacted my life. My whole family is full of nascar fans, but I had a hard time getting into it because I didn't have a driver that resonated with me or a sponsor I could identify with. (I liked the m&ms car but my family quickly shot down the idea of me being a Kyle busch fan haha) anyway, one day I was watching the show Labrats, on Disney I think, and they had a racing episode, and Joey logano was the guest star for the episode. Finally I had someone I could identify with, and really that episode is what made me a fan today.

I can tell I’m going to like this one.

When I visited hendrick, I actually got to see a bit of a photoshoot going on with Jeff's car and a Silverado

Mark Martin is my favorite. I truly miss the late 80s and all of the 90's Nascar.

Hell, your videos are what got me back into NASCAR about a year ago, I think you're doing just as much for reviving NASCAR because of your high quality videos.

One of my favorite drivers when I was younger was Kyle Petty, simply because his race car was in one of my favorite game when I was a kid: Hot Wheels Turbo Racing. I'm still a bit of a Hot Wheels nut today, though that mostly extends to customizing and collecting now. I was also a Jeff Gordon fan at one point, for some reason. Probably because of how colorful his car was. You bring up an interesting point. Something had to draw the fans in. It certainly wasn't the racing. Jokes about how boring oval racing is have been around for a long time. I remember seeing one in a George Carlin skit from the 80s. Though if I may, as you yourself pointed out in a previous video, brands going all out on a particular driver does have its downsides. Tabasco Fiasco anyone?

Fun fact. Your spam story is almost like my story of how I came to be a Scott Riggs fan but added spice. So i loved nesquick and would always root for the car. I loved it because it was also mainly yellow. We had even done the mail in promotion for a diecast of the car (which was a high quality hotwheels made nascar). Turns out later on my dad actually worked with a family member of his, and ended up getting his autograph for me, with it even being personalized. It was so cool

1:54 Visions of old Adult Swim started coming up. "ALL KIDS OUT OF THE POOL!"

Such a fantastic piece of work here. I miss everything in this video. Great job.

Dupont Rainbow 24 (1993-00) is the best paint Scheme

I remember begging my mom to go to a mcdonalds and get me the kids meal when i was 6 or 7 because i knew they had a monster truck toy that you could get, and i ate the mcdonalds instead of my moms lasagna, and then every day before school i would watch monster jam highlights while eating my cereal rather than watching cartoons... to this day im still a fan of monster jam, and i probably wouldn't be without that kids meal toy. This video made AMAZING points.

Great video, you make some excellent points about advertising and marketing here. Anime and Video Games sponsorship and tie-ins could give them some wider vision and may be the ticket they need to punch, like you say. Advertising and marketing has so many possibilities that I have always felt just about anything can work if done the right way. I know that Tide in Nascar years ago got me buying it more often, especially since that damn paint job looked so good. Something very easy on the eyes about that Tide paint.

Thanks for posting! I didn't become a NASCAR fan until 2004, but there were still some brilliant commercials featuring drivers then. Dale Jr. and Michael Waltrip were regulars, as well as the Gillette Young Guns (Junior was one, but so were Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, and Matt Kenseth). I also remember the Kasey Kahne Allstate commercials quite fondly. As a longtime race fan (who graduated from college with a marketing degree in 2017), I definitely think it is time for NASCAR to step up its marketing game once again.

what!! I didn't see any mention of Alan's Hooters car

this is so true! As a kid my favorite paint scheme was Chad Little's John Deere ride, so much so that I convinced my dad to get a John Deere lawnmower haha!

Love ur vids man especially ur playoff video it was hard for me 2 watch nascar 2 much longer after that well that and jimmy Johnson lol but keep up the great work hope to see more videos from you soon

Dude you are spot on. I remember all those ads from the 90s and 00s with the drivers, today there might be 3 drivers you see on ads. The problem is nascar costs too much money. There aren’t a lot of sponsors that can foot the bill for the entire season so they don’t really see the drivers as their guy 24/7 when he’s running someone else’s name on the car several weekends.

Yeah Let’s have Minecraft Sponsor a car

"oh snap is that the spam car?" *click* ... yeah you're bang on there mate, works. every. time.

I second every word of it. Mark Martin was the favourite driver of my late father. I didn't really have a favourite NASCAR driver as my hero was busy winning the 1993 CART championship at the time, but I liked NASCAR for the close racing and the hilarious names, like Buckshot Jones, Greg Biffle, Dick Trickle, Greg Sacks. To a German, these names sound simply hilarious. That's how big NASCAR was in the 90s. We got to see all the races in full on Eurosport.

this is a great video keep up the good work