http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY3dCl-TGng

History in the Making — Toyota’s and Bang Racing’s First NASCAR Win

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQM7ibkkl8o

Alex Meshkin is a technology executive and serial entrepreneur having founded or led organizations in healthcare, digital media, sports, and global outsourcing services.

Meshkin is  Executive Chairman of huvi, a social commerce platform, enabling consumers to buy and sell digital movies. huvi works in partnership with major Hollywood studios to reduce piracy, monetize consumer to consumer transactions and enable a secondary market for digital goods.

More recently, Meshkin co-founded a health IT Company where a team of leading health care providers, technology entrepreneurs and product development ninjas are building a platform to improve collaboration and communications in healthcare.

In 1999, at the age of 19, Meshkin launched his first consumer internet start-up and experienced the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. In the years that followed, Meshkin became the CEO of Toyota Motorsports’ flagship NASCAR racing team, Bang! Racing. Toyota selected the young Meshkin from 83 NASCAR race team candidates; to lead Toyota’s factory supported NASCAR racing team. Toyota’s partnership with Meshkin created one of the most successful racing organizations in its first year of operations.

In 2004, Bang! Racing made NASCAR history – setting numerous milestones. As the principle owner of Bang! Racing, Meshkin became the youngest team owner in NASCAR history and the team became the most successful first year NASCAR race team – winning Toyota’s first two races in their inaugural season.

Bang Holdings, the parent company of Bang! Racing was also a success off the race track.  In its first year of operations, Bang generated over $15 million in revenues; partnered with Vertrue to form a joint venture; and with their strategic technology partner eBay created and operated a NASCAR consumer membership and affinity marketing club.

By the age of 23, Meshkin was one of NASCAR’s elite team owners and a recurring guest on Fox News Channel and CNBC Squawk Box; and featured in numerous publications, including Fortune, Sporting News, Racer, Associated Press and Sports Illustrated.

Bang! Racing sponsors included, Toyota Motor Sales, DuPont, Viacom (Showtime Networks), Line-X, Valvoline and Snap-On Tools. In 2005, the race team was acquired by Toyota Motorsports and Bill Davis Racing. The technology divisions were merged in 2006 into Cloverleaf Partners and the NASCAR membership club became FastTrack Savings operating as DealPass.com.

Prior to Bang! Racing, Meshkin founded and operated a global software development company with a focus on healthcare and pharmaceutical platforms with clients such as Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly.

Additionally, Meshkin served as Director of Product and Strategic Development of cyberCFO, a venture funded financial services firm and later as VP and GM at Cloverleaf Partners.  Meshkin started his digital media entrepreneurial career at the age of 19, when he founded and led the first online “points” based dynamic commerce/auction model.

To learn more about Alex Meshkin, please visit his blog at http://alexmeshkin.com and LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/meshkin. Check out his videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/alexmeshkin

Josh Kopelman pointed out some fascinating empirical evidence to support the need for massive innovation in the ecommerce marketplace.

• More than half of today’s top 15 most trafficked websites today did not exist back in 1999.  That is not a surprise, as Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia, Myspace, Blogger, Live.com and Twitter are all new — and are representative of the massive amount of innovation and disruption that has occurred in the last decade.
• Yet, of the top 15 most trafficked eCommerce websites today, just one of them did not exist back in 1999 (NewEgg – which launched in 2001).  Which means that over 90% of the top eCommerce websites are over 12 years old!  That is pretty remarkable to me — and reflects an amazing lack of external innovation (and disruption).

As Josh Kopelman further points out, the online shopping paradigm is finally changing.  In the past year, there has been an increasing amount of innovation, including, group buying, private shopping sites and alternative payment technologies.

As an entrepreneur and ecommerce innovator, I believe the best is ahead of us. The future of ecommerce a/k/a Commerce 2.0 is a future whereby the service itself will be able to generate traffic in much of the same ways that Twitter and Facebook have transformed social media.

At my company huvi, we are developing a next generation digital media marketplace that will transform how consumers buy, share and consume digital content.

Many of the NASCAR faithful have repeatedly stated: “the sky is not falling NASCAR has a larger television audience today than in 2001”. While this may true – it has little to do with the enormous problems facing NASCAR today. The problem is one of economics that simply don’t add up.

As a former team owner, I can speak to the fact that there is an alarming disconnect between the highly profitable NASCAR Corporate; and the costs of operating a team and the corresponding costs to sponsor a team. It is NASCAR’s “disconnect” and perhaps even ignorance to the fact that NASCAR teams are facing a sponsorship depression that is the fundamental problem – and it is this blindness that will ultimately cripple NASCAR if they continue down this same pathway.

On Sunday, Brian France, Chief Executive Officer of NASCAR was asked; Are you certain you’ll have 43 car fields next year?

We’re pretty confident about that. I said before to many of you, you know, we’re also criticized for having too many cars.

I don’t know if he is taking lessons from the former Iraq Information Minister – Baghdad Bob.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrXhxmQJSS0

But unless he is counting on Dave Marcus and Morgan Sheppard – having 43 competitive cars is extremely unlikely.

Just like the global financial crisis, the problems were not created overnight and may require the governing body to stimulate the NASCAR economy. But NASCAR needs far more sweeping changes than just the teams receiving a larger share of the television revenues. A variety of topics that must be addressed include; dramatic cost savings for the teams, incentives which drive fan interest – larger focus on winning — less on consistency, and greater shares in revenues so teams can sell sponsorship packages for considerably less — increasing the value proposition for corporate sponsors.

The basic message which seems to be lost in the entire dialogue over the sponsorship crisis – is not that companies haven’t wanted to become involved in NASCAR marketing – it is just cost prohibitive; too much risk and the ROI is difficult to measure. If we withdraw ourselves from the current economic crisis and rewind the clock to 2007; and if teams could have marketed Sprint Cup primary sponsorships for $10 million – do you think we would have the dramatic sponsor shortage of today? I don’t think so – the problem is primarily the price not the product.

Now I want to be clear – the product needs innovation and a fresh approach to bring die-hards back into the fold and make the sport more interesting to all sports’ enthusiasts. However, Brian France has only focused on the latter; and subsequently, by attempting to reach out to non-core fans he not only failed to grow the fan base, but he alienated many loyalists which has diluted the value proposition for many NASCAR sponsors.

It had been a turbulent few weeks leading up to this incredible day. Perhaps; in some ways, this made the win ever sweeter. I had recently made significant personnel changes to improve our racing operations and team chemistry; wanting to provide a better chance to score our first victory. Our two race teams entered Michigan International Speedway with a renewed confidence and attitude following the departure of Larry McReynolds from Bang Racing and we expected to demonstrate our team’s unity and potential at the Line-X 200, a race event sponsored by Line-X Spray-On Bedliners, one of our team’s primary sponsors.

We didn’t disappoint our sponsors or racing fans that day; our trucks combined to dominate the entire event finishing 1st and 3rd and bringing Toyota a victory in the backyard of the Big 3 American Carmakers. Much was noted in the press about this precocious internet whiz kid who came out of nowhere to lead Toyota’s flagship racing team and become the youngest NASCAR team owner; and then, breaking numerous NASCAR records and going on to make history as the most successful first year race team. It was a tremendous achievement for our new team; and an honor to herald the banner for Toyota in their inaugural year in NASCAR. But equally rewarding was having a childhood dream become a reality.

This dramatic victory has paved the way for today’s on-track performance of Toyota’s flagship NASCAR teams. But Bang Racing will always remain in the NASCAR and Toyota motorsports history books — as the team which brought Toyota their first victory in NASCAR. Without a doubt, this victorious day was etched in the hearts of many and will not be soon forgotten.

Alex Meshkin and Bang Racing Make History — Toyota’s First Win in NASCAR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY3dCl-TGng

When specifically analyzing NASCAR as a marketing platform it’s undisputed that it provides unparallel consumer brand loyalty for sponsors; however “die-hard” fans, which are the most brand loyal – are unfortunately also a dying breed. As our country continues to face high inflation and a challenging economy for the middle-class, which is the loyal mainstay of the NASCAR demographic; it will become a less attractive marketing medium to corporate marketers.

Across the country, many businesses are attempting to adapt to this challenging economic market. Over the past number of months, the newspaper industry has announced wide scale layoffs as they attempt to transition their business to more online operations. The latest causality is The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that announced cuts to its work force by approximately 8 percent or 189 jobs. NASCAR is not alone; and needs to take heed and understand that it is no different than t the challenged models of the newspaper and Old Media industries – which also offer a branding and awareness platform with no real method to measure customer acquisition for its advertisers. Old Media is in a state of peril; and NASCAR and its teams must not make the fatal mistake of assuming they are immune to the fragile economy. Now is the time for them to reinvent themselves or they will face a similar dreadful business fate for their sponsorship prospects.

As a lifelong fan, former team owner and new media entrepreneur – I see numerous avenues to upgrade NASCAR from its current “1.0” platform to a “2.0” marketing approach; and leverage digital media technologies and social marketing techniques to provide unparallel fan interaction and advertiser ROI.

Back in 2003, in conjunction with the launch of my team Bang Racing with Toyota Motorsports, I developed a marketing platform and corresponding online venture to engage consumers and enable advertisers to target fans with online promotions and incentives. We successfully deployed a “points” based auction powered by eBay (a Bang Racing sponsor) and delivered unmatched ROI to our sponsors.

Today there exists technologies, which if employed could provide NASCAR and teams with a solution. Available web 2.0 architecture and social marketing techniques would enable NASCAR, teams and sponsors to leverage existing technology and increase their exposure, interaction and ultimately the sponsors’ ROI.

The most basic web 2.0 technologies, which have transformed online marketing, journalism and even politics, are “blogs”. They are free and easy to use but yet, not a single driver, team or even NASCAR has implemented one. This most basic concept is far beyond the understanding of most NASCAR insiders and demonstrates the antiquated approach to marketing.

NASCAR racing is entertainment and content; and while NASCAR Corporate controls the “content” at the racetrack; and teams are unable to successfully monetize their at-track presence – racing teams do have the ability to monetize their “content” away from the track – if they employ these new technologies. “RaceWorld”, which was a failed attempt by Michael Waltrip to engage fans in a physical structure, further demonstrates a lack of current business and technology savvy of NASCAR teams. Today, teams must embrace and engage fans through technology and the internet rather than expensive and traditional channels. A great case study is the success of online video – which is dominated by user-generated content – not by television networks or studios – this is the genius of the success of YouTube.

NASCAR teams, such as Hendrick Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing could offset the devastating effects of projected manufacturer financial support losses and a difficult sponsorship market by simply distributing content through a variety of successful online businesses, which would increase advertisers’/sponsor’ impressions; while providing new revenue sources.

Through the use of live online streaming, micro-blogging, social networking and other web 2.0 concepts – NASCAR Corporate, racing teams and motorsports sponsors have the ability to receive an ROI capable of sustaining the growing costs of the sport. What are they waiting for – the race is on – and time is running out!