Voiceover (00:00):

Welcome to the Taylor Ten. A fast-paced, 10 minute deep dive into the minds of those shaking up the marketing world, bringing you the sharpest insights, boldest ideas and breakthrough trends driving the industry forward. So tune in, get inspired, and stay ahead.

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Maeve (00:18):

Hello, I am Maeve Hagan and welcome to the Taylor Ten. I am here with Shannon Hooper from 23XI Racing Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin's race team. She is the VP of Partnerships at the race team and has been in partnerships for as long as I've known her, probably her entire career. And I am here to learn all I can in ten minutes about building brands through racing partnerships. So Shannon, thank you for joining me today. It's great to see you, great to be with you.

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Shannon (00:51):

Same, I just wish we were in person together!

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Maeve (00:54):

I know, you'd think we could just drive down the road a little bit and do this in person a little bit better, but that's the podcast world, Shannon. So let's get into it. What makes a good brand fit for 23XI specifically?

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Shannon (01:07):

One of the reasons I joined 23XI, is the brand and really our mission. So we're out there again, we're five years old, we're one of the youngest NASCAR teams and when Michael Jordan first came into this, had the conversations with Denny, the reason he wanted to do this was one to win, but two, he wanted to change a sport. You know, it’s an older demographic, typically southeast, not a lot of diversity – both on the teams and in the fans in the stands. So that is our mission, we want to change a sport and we can't do that just by ourselves. We're 120 people strong here, but we're small and mighty, but we need partners to do that. So it's really, we want to align with partners that have that same vision, that same mission. They believe in it and we're very thankful to have some of the best sponsors in sports as a whole, not even just NASCAR.

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(02:04):

I mean you put in the Jordan brand and the power of that brand from a global perspective, Columbia Sportswear has been fantastic to work with McDonald's, Monster. So again, a lot of our brands are culturally relevant, but at the same point, they're also trying to bring in a younger, more diverse fan for themselves. We build our fan base off the back of theirs and their following. But again, someone who really just believes in our mission is so important and critical as we're looking to find new partners. And again, I think that's why we have such unique sponsors. Columbia Sportswear doesn't do a ton in sports. They're not in the NFL, they're not in the NBA. The reason they're with us is they believe in this mission and they want to help us change a sport and we're seeing it, we're seeing the results even in year five.

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Maeve (02:54):

How do we help? How do you and your team specifically help partners sort of go beyond the logo placement to activate meaningfully in culture? Because I think one thing that I talk with a lot of my colleagues about is it's one thing to have the money to buy the car, if you will. This analogy makes a lot more sense when we're talking about racing. You have the money to buy the car, but if you don't have the money to put the gas in the car, what is that going to do for you and your brand at the end of the day? So how do we help partners go beyond that logo placement and really make it a meaningful collaboration?

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Shannon (03:33):

Yeah, I mean when I first got into NASCAR, it used to be that partners wanted to see their name on that car. They wanted to see it 38 weekends and it was really all about that brand recognition. The car, and I'll use another pun, is just the vehicle at this point. We use that, it's all about the content we're creating and the events we're doing with fans. The beautiful thing about NASCAR is we change our cars every week. And that's something that especially 23XI fans have come to get excited about. They want to see what that paint scheme's going to look like. But then again, to your point, it's what is the campaign? What is the messaging, who does that brand try to communicate with with that paint scheme? And one thing we push our partners on and really is helping us grow as a brand is we want to be at the cross section of music, fashion, culture, gaming, where we can go find new audiences.

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(04:26):

Because the cool thing about us is, once fans realize Michael Jordan, Denny have a NASCAR team, and what our mission is, we're bringing in new fans. So it's really those collaborations that we get the most traction with. It's very rare that our partners are just running a Jordan brand car. They're running the Luka Dončić shoe release car tied to the shoe release, tied to the messaging with him and Tyler and the content that's going to go right before NBA All-Star. So it's kind of trying to find those pockets of windows where it's relevant to something else that's bigger. But again, the car and just the paint scheme itself is just, it's just that vehicle. It's that visual that we carry through everything else we do. We've had so many fun cross collaborations with our partners and we have a ton coming this year. It's a little stressful for me and my team because again, every week they're changing, but at the same point, fans have just come to look, what is 2311 going to look like this week? And those paint scheme unveils are a lot of fun and we tend to try to really lean into those, again, tied to a bigger objective for the partner.

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Maeve (05:34):

Yeah, that's awesome. I mean it reeks of storytelling opportunity both for the brand, for the team, for the drivers, probably to an extent. So, on that note, what's one of your favorite examples of a brand that really got it right in how they showed up in motorsports, whether it was with 23XI, obviously, or in general. I know you mentioned Columbia and McDonald's. What's one that you really felt like got it right?

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Shannon (06:02):

I think we've had a couple, and I'll give an example of each, because from a gaming perspective, that's somewhere we'd like to play. And we did this promotion with Mobile 1 with Rocket League. Again, they're a big sponsor in Rocket League, and they're trying to get younger audiences to get interested in car culture. We know younger fans don't really care. I mean, my daughter's not even that excited about getting her driver's license, which baffles me. So we actually took, and we unveiled the paint scheme in the car in the game first, and then it was tied to a lot of the content that we had tied with Tyler talking about Mobile 1 and talking about how he loves to work on cars. And then we actually ran the paint scheme, I want to say two weeks after it debuted in the game.

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(06:44):

And the audience reach we saw with that was unbelievable. And so doing things within gaming, you know, we want to do something in Roblox, we want to do all of these things because that one, the fans there, they love it, they love that you're paying attention to a world they care about. But at the same point, it's also they go on there and design. Now there's probably four or five different 23XI cars within Rocket League. The fans just decided to design on their own and adding Mobile 1, so it still has legs to this date. So I think that's one of the ones I love doing. One of the really cool things with Jordan brand is again, to help us reach a new audience. J Balvin, he was getting ready to launch a new apparel line and we actually brought him to Bristol, Tennessee. He designed the car himself. You want to talk about a crossover, like NASCAR fans had no idea who he was, but they sure did after that.

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(07:34):

But the audience that he brought in with that was absolutely massive. Some of our largest social content to date. And those fans stick with us. They start to figure out what we're all about. So that was an awesome one on the music side. McDonalds, we did in Chicago last year. It was a lot of fun. I had to educate myself on anime. I needed my son's help there. That was a new one to me, but obviously, it's a huge, massive global audience. They ran Jujutsu Kaisen on the car, which again, was a massive property. And even just getting Bubba educated in that world and the fun content, we made him into a character, him and Tyler within the same artists that do the actual anime and just had a ton of fun with that. And then showing up with that at Comic-Con. And that's where we really are going to break through with having the car there. And again, for McDonald's really reaching a new audience.

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Maeve (08:30):

That's awesome. I think the racing world can learn a lot from what you guys are doing over at 23XI. I mean, never would I have thought that all three of those things that you just mentioned, anime and Roblox and gaming would make any sense in the NASCAR world. So in the last 30 seconds, what's the one thing, the most underrated benefit of a racing partnership today?

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Shannon (08:55):

It's being creative. We're not a league. We own our rights. We own our driver's rights. So there's really no, nothing's off the table. We want big, crazy ideas because we really can do what we want. And that's what I love about the sport of NASCAR. Very different from my experience in NFL and some other properties. A brand can be extremely creative. That's where we had the most fun.

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Maeve (09:18):

I love that. Well, thank you. 10 minutes goes very fast. We appreciate your time on the Taylor Ten. Hopefully maybe we'll get you back towards the end of the season. I know we're in advance of the big race in Charlotte this weekend, so appreciate your time.

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Shannon (09:33):

Thank You.

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