• by Karl Greenberg , April 30, 2010

Bosch Spark Plugs is touting its relationship with race team Hendrick Motorsports, whose drivers are in a new multimillion-dollar national advertising campaign aimed at do-it-yourselfers, and running through the fall.

The campaign -- "Light 'Em Up", Bosch's biggest to date -- is intended to appeal to car buffs seeking high-performance parts with a new microsite, LightEmUp.com, as well as print ads, a digital campaign, and an iPhone app.

The new microsite features one-on-one interviews with Hendrick Motorsports drivers and team members, whose NASCAR teams Bosch sponsors. Greg Braun, executive creative director at Team Detroit, which created the campaign, tells Marketing Daily that the aim was an authentic take on Team Hendrick's use of Bosch products.

He says the video interviews don't just feature the team's well-known racers like Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. "We also went all the way up to people like [owner] Rick Hendrick, and Jimmy's crew chief, so we address this from a lot of different perspectives. They are called upon for sponsorship communications on a regular basis, but on Bosch they were happy to talk about it, which was cool."

David Maas, SVP and group account director at Team Detroit, tells Marketing Daily that the media buy includes books like Hot Rod, Motor Trend, Automotive Week, Popular Mechanics and younger-skewing buff books like Super Street and 0-60 Magazine.

Braun says the online buys include more sports-oriented media like NASCAR.com, ESPN.com, as well as a presence on Hispanic media. consumer-generated content, spark plug product details, retail store locator and promotional offers. The interactive part of the campaign also features rich-media ads, banner ads, site skins and custom units all directing consumers to LightEmUp.com.

Maas says the effort eschews TV ads for interactive and print because the target is so defined. "We will get some 600 million impressions among the do-it-yourself target," he says, "meaning we will reach about 95% of them an average of sixteen times. We have not done any TV because of the fragmented nature of the media. It's a core audience you can reach without TV, and we want to be where they are."

The campaign includes a "Bosch Dyno" iPhone app of which there is a free version and a "full" version for $4.99. The app turns one's iPhone into a dynamometer that measures 0-60 time, quarter mile, lateral G's and horsepower. Users can then share results via Facebook and Twitter. The apps also work for iPod Touch and iPad. The $4.99 version includes a mail-in rebate for spark plugs from Bosch.