• by Karl Greenberg , February 1, 2008

Kraft's Nabisco brand is extending its "Official Cracker of Nascar" status for Ritz crackers with sponsorship of Roush Fenway Racing, a division of New England Sports Ventures (NESV), owner of the BoSox. The deal includes a national sweepstakes promotion tied to Ford Racing Technology. Roush is allied with Ford, whose Fusion car is the basis for its Nascar program.

The relationship centers on the "Race to Win a Ride" sweepstakes, which starts this month and runs through September. Ritz is dangling a trip to the Sprint Cup Series Championship Weekend at the Homestead-Miami Speedway this November for five winners. There, the winners get to meet Roush Fenway drivers, and one of the five gets a 2009 Ford racing-equipped Mustang V6 sports car.

Support for the campaign is via print, TV, radio, and Internet ads, as well as thematic product packaging and in-store displays. There will also be a grassroots element to the sponsorship, with Ritz trucking a replica Roush Fenway car to retail sites around the country. The Roush car that driver Matt Kenseth will race in the Dayton 500 will be emblazoned with the Ritz logo.

Specially marked packages of Ritz crackers, on sale in April, will include a cut-out of the Ritz Nascar car on the back panels. The company says it will place lobby displays comprising inflatable cars and graphics in over 12,000 retailers through August.

The TV ads for the Nascar push, starting this month, will be part of Ritz' new "Open for Fun" campaign that launched on New Year's Eve. That effort was the first big shift for Kraft's cracker business since Euro RSCG won the business from JWT last summer. The new Ritz brand campaign includes a raft of TV spots, print ads, outdoor postings, light projections in-store promotions, and ritzcrackers.com/openforfun.

The Nascar and Roush Fenway Racing TV ads will run on Fox and TNT. Print will run in People's "Country" edition and TV Guide's Daytona issue, as well as at Kraftfoods.com and Fordracing.com.

There will also be call-to-action radio spots touting the sweepstakes and driving consumers to stores where they can enter the sweeps. The radio portion of the campaign includes its own promotion: a chance to win an autographed Matt Kenseth Ritz Race fire suit.

Kraft says Ford's participation includes putting the Ritz cracker promotion on the company's Ford Racing web site and fan club e-mail blasts, Inside the Oval magazine, and direct mail information.

Meanwhile, NESV bought interest in Roush because of the potential cross-pollination opportunities with the Red Sox fan base, according to Mark Lev, EVP of Fenway Sports Group, a sports marketing division of NESV. "The principal owner felt that there was opportunity to cultivate a Nascar fan base in New England and use some of the assets he had through the other properties he owns to build that base," he says The idea, says Lev, is that Red Sox Nation could become Nascar nation.

He says NESV's Fenway Sports Group will market Nascar in Fenway Park this year, including putting a Red Sox car at major events at the park. He said last year's efforts included a "Roush Racing Fenway Day," in which the car was unveiled on the field and drivers threw out the first pitch. "We have had Roush Fenway Racing signage as part of a wide range of marketing activity going on to familiarize New Englanders and Sox fans with Nascar and the brand."