Sports Biz

In February, I wrote a column about Dale Earnhardt Jr. and how, despite the fact that he had only won twice in 114 races, he was still the most marketable in the sport.

In the piece, I said I’d be keeping a close eye on AMP Energy, Pepsi’s energy drink that signed him in September '07 after he switched to Hendrick Motorsports and dropped Budweiser as his primary sponsor.

Earnhardt hasn’t had a bad season – he’s in 11th in the standings with two races to go – but he hasn’t exactly made Victory Lane his home, winning once in June at the Lifelink 400 in Michigan.

That being said, we checked back in with the folks at Pepsi

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[PBG  Loading...      ()   ] and they are extremely happy with their big investment in “Little E.”

In top NASCAR markets, AMP Energy drink has grown 127.5 percent in the last year, more than 13 times faster than the robust category—which debuted some 300 new entrants this year alone—has grown. Volume sales growth of the drink is up 52.1 percent year-to-date in all measured channels, which is more than five times what the category has experienced. And that growth is up almost 100 percent in the grocery channel alone.

This morning, I talked with Maurice Herrera, director of marketing for AMP Energy, about the company’s success with Earnhardt.

Darren: What was your goal when you started out this partnership?

Herrera: Well, it’s a pretty cluttered space and it’s very competitive. So our goal was to drive awareness of the brand because we felt like we had a great product that people should know about. We also felt like there was an underserved audience in the NASCAR fan.

Darren: In February, I wrote about the fact that I’d be watching AMP Energy to see how good of a spokesman Dale Earnhardt Jr. really was. At the time, you were fifth in market share behind Monster, Red Bull, Rockstar and Full Throttle. Where are you now?

Herrera: We’ve passed full throttle now and we’re the No. 3 trademark, behind Red Bull and Monster, in the convenience store space in the half of the country where NASCAR has done well.

Darren: What have you done with the partnership?

Herrera: We put his face on over 10 million, 16 oz. cans that have his name and image on it. We recently launched a 12 oz. Limited edition can series with him on it and we’ve sold almost two million of those (year-to-date). We, of course, sponsored the AMP Energy 500 at Talledega and gave fans the chance for 70,000 consumers to have their name Dale’s car that ran on the track. And a lot of this works because of how approachable Dale is and he embraces how easy it is for fans to get closer in NASCAR than some other sports.

Darren: Dale won only won once this year. How has that affected things at all with AMP Energy?

Herrera: Winning is definitely important, but equally important is how competitive you are. He always has his heart set on wanting to win and we’re happy that he is part of the Chase. Our expectations with him were extremely high and he’s been an amazing asset for us in terms of driving awareness, sales and loyalty.

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