Tag Archives: Elk Grove Village

Suburb of Elk Grove Village now turns to NASCAR race car ad

Posted on by

Elk Grove Village has sponsored a college football bowl game. Now, it is sponsoring a NASCAR car:

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The Northwest suburban municipality — of Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl fame — has inked a two-year marketing partnership with the Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing team that will enable it to affix its business marketing tagline, logo and brand to the No. 6 Ford Mustang stock car during the NASCAR Chicago Street race events next year.

The announcement was made during the ninth Made in Elk Grove Manufacturing & Technology Expo at the high school. The daylong exhibition, awards and networking event highlights businesses within the village’s sprawling industrial park — which the village has sought to promote through several unconventional marketing sponsorships. The town sponsored the college football bowl game in 2018 and 2019, plus three USA Olympic teams last year.

“Elk Grove Village is home to the largest industrial park in North America. We’re surrounded by incredible transportation options and our town works hard to make this a destination for businesses,” Johnson said in a statement. “Partnering with RFK for a marquee race allows us to reach a huge audience with a partner that shares a passion in American business and manufacturing.”

Suburbs continue to market themselves in order to stand out from the hundreds of other suburban communities with which they might be competing. Lots of suburbs could say they have industrial space, nearby transportation options, and are business friendly. Fewer might be able to say they have “the largest industrial park,” sit near O’Hare Airport, within such a busy region for railroad traffic, and right next to major highways, and offer exactly what Elk Grove Village can offer businesses. This branding effort will help highlight these distinctive features.

But, the big question is whether this broader exposure translates into increased business and development activity in the community. Will those watching Brad Keselowski zoom around a track visit makerswanted.org in large numbers or relocate their firms to the suburb? Is it enough that the suburb might have an increased status but no change in activity?

Suburb gets $12 million in media exposure for sponsoring college bowl game

Posted on by

According to Elk Grove Village officials, sponsoring the Bahamas Bowl paid off handsomely:

The village’s $300,000 fee to sponsor the Bahamas Bowl resulted in $12 million in media exposure, according to an independent audit, Mayor Craig Johnson told the village board Feb. 12. The village has an option to sponsor this year’s contest, which would entitle it to again tie its slogan — “Makers Wanted” — to the bowl game. A decision on whether to exercise that option is expected later this month.

Johnson said the audit, supplied to the village by ESPN, which owns the Bahamas Bowl and broadcasts it, indicates Elk Grove Village’s sponsorship generated a 40-times return in media coverage. The $12 million figure was derived from a formula that assigns a dollar amount to mentions, commercials and airtime showing the Makers Wanted logo, said Johnson, who was the driving force behind the sponsorship…

The unusual story of a Chicago suburb becoming a bowl sponsor is also being credited for a spike in traffic on the village’s website that lasted long after the Dec. 21 telecast of the game from Nassau, Johnson said.

Of course, media exposure might not be the best metric by which to measure this:

Whether those talks lead to anything tangible will be the long-term gauge of success for the village’s sponsorship, said Dennis Coates, an economics professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the editor of the Journal of Sports Economics.

This reminds me of metrics used for online articles and social media content: how many impressions did it have? Unique visitors? Clicks? All of this can be fairly complicated.

But, the real payoff is knowing that advertising or sponsorship or particular information changed people’s behavior. It will take some time to know whether the impressions translate into new businesses in Elk Grove Village. Even then, new business activity may or may not be related to the game sponsorship. In ten years, can this suburb conclusively show that a one-time investment (or ongoing sponsorship over the years) like this led to positive change? And then, it might be worth doing a cost-benefit analysis to see if the sponsorship money was effectively spent.

Suburb sponsors a college bowl game, gets nearly 20 mentions, 6 commercials, and a lot of visuals on the field

Posted on by

Elk Grove Village sponsored a college bowl game. The Daily Herald tracked how often the community was mentioned during the game broadcast:

The 3½-hour telecast included nearly 20 mentions of the formal bowl game name that uses Elk Grove’s “Makers Wanted” tagline, and six commercials promoting the business park…

11:33 a.m. The players take the field, sporting the bowl game logo on jerseys. The logo, featuring the “Makers Wanted” slogan nestled in between two palm trees, is on the 50-yard line, while separate “Makers Wanted Elk Grove Village Illinois” logos are on the 25-yard lines. Similar banners are on sidelines behind team benches. Smaller sideline signs feature “Makers Wanted” and Elk Grove-based Stern Pinball, which gave pinball machines to each team.

11:54 a.m. Elk Grove airs its first TV commercial, which it gets as part of the sponsorship deal. “Why would Elk Grove Village sponsor the Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl?” the announcer asks. “Because we’re proud,” mentioning the new technology park under development and access to transportation. The TV spot invites businesses to learn more “about how we can help your company grow at makerswanted.org.”…

2:32 p.m. Coming back from a break, ESPN shows scenes from Elk Grove’s municipal complex and park district and the watch party at Real Time Sports bar. “Good on the Makers Wanted people and all our friends watching in Elk Grove Village,” Levy says. “Need a place to set up and start a business and start a life? That’s an excellent place to go.”

Add in all the times viewers saw logos on the field and in the stadium and it sounds like the suburb received plenty of air-time.

Two related thoughts:

  1. It is interesting to see how the community tried to present itself. The whole point was to sell the business space and atmosphere of the community but that does not happen by just showing empty land and warehouses. So, if you are trying to promote a friendly community that is full of successful businesses and entrepreneurs, what else do you show? Based on the account above, they showed a party and a pinball competition hosted by a local company. Could those events happen anywhere? Would local residents recognize this as their community in terms of a pervasive local character or did it just cherry-pick a few pieces of the suburb?
  2. Imagine a future where more communities sponsor sporting events or other major events. The average American has never heard of most other suburbs. The average Chicago area resident likely knows little about Elk Grove Village outside of its location near O’Hare Airport. This could be a way for relatively small and unknown places to become more known. At the same time, such campaigns are unlikely to have major transformative effects on suburbs.

Chicago suburb to sponsor college bowl game

Posted on by

The competition between suburbs can be intense and Elk Grove Village has a new way to stand out: sponsor a college bowl game to be played in the Bahamas.

The village and ESPN announced Tuesday that Elk Grove will be the title sponsor of the Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl, to be played Dec. 21 in Nassau, Bahamas, using the village’s business marketing tag line. The village is spending $300,000 to sponsor the game, which will air on ESPN. The game had previously been sponsored by Popeyes.

It marks the first time a non-tourist municipality has sponsored a bowl game, the village and ESPN say…

Johnson wanted a way to expand the reach of the village’s “Makers Wanted” campaign, which launched in 2015 to promote the village industrial park — at 6 square miles, the largest contiguous one in the country. The campaign has included a website, billboards, TV and radio commercials, and print ads…

The fee to sponsor the bowl game is part of a $400,000 increase the board approved in its contract with Lombard-based Red Caffeine, the marketing company that developed the Makers Wanted campaign. The other funds will pay for new Elk Grove TV commercials set to air regionally on cable news channels this fall.

It is not uncommon for states to mount such campaigns. For example, see efforts by Texas, Indiana, Florida, and isconsin to draw residents and businesses from Illinois. It is more rare for a single suburb to mount such a campaign on a national scale.

However, conspicuously missing from this article is any evidence that such campaigns work. Can the village conclusively show that the campaign started in 2015 has (1) increased the number of businesses in the community and (2) revenues have increased because of the moves?

This could also be about the status of the suburb. The Chicago area has scores of suburbs and communities often want to stand out. This is why they might seek to change a motto, a logo, or run campaigns to distinguish themselves from others. Such a marketing campaign can make a suburb feel better about itself and local leaders can show they are being proactive regarding growing their community (and growth is good).

It will be very interesting to see whether the football audience helps advance the goals of the suburb and if they are willing to renew their sponsorship for another year past the first. The mayor is claiming the news about the campaign has already helped the suburb (suggesting 95% of the value has already been realized) but the long-term prognosis will take some time to sort out.