They Call me Mello Yello

[MHayes]

Always count on you Mike thanks for the support, life is bigger than pointing out someone who did not push the spacebar hard enough. I'll just let you win your little tirade and let it become the Victoria's Secret NHRA Drag Racing Series. Too extreme? No, just like you didn't go to the extremes in your post.

Think about the sponsors, think about the image behind them and rethink your post, everything you named was never a series sponsor, if you haven't notice this post is about SERIES SPONSORSHIP!

Winston, Power-ADE. Full Throttle, Mellow-Yellow. Which one doesn't sound exciting or something everyone knows. Who even knows what Mellow-Yellow is? How many shelves do you see mellow-yellow on? Where is the marketing for that brand? Coke was talking about how Full Throttle was doing terrible in sales, so they change it to this? Full Throttle had at least the ad campaign.

Coke needs to do what I suggested along time ago, they need to sponsor a car in each class, no better way to really try and launch a new series sponsor.

Patrick, I would be happy to support something you said if it made sense, but many times your statements do not. Surprise me sometime!

As for extremes, why don't you take a look at your statement i was quoting before......Mello Yello being the nail in the coffin, that's just rediculous! And as for Victoria's Secret drag racing series, man I'll take it!! Just think of the beauties that they would send to promote it, LOL!

Why don't you think about it....it's not about series sponsors, it's about sponsors in general!! If they are willing to invest in the NHRA, then I say welcome aboard and thank you for your investment in our sport! The companies do it for exposure and for a return on investment. If the NHRA only wanted companies that have names that sound cool or relate to being fast, then the list of possible series sponsors would be extrememly limited!

Here's one for you Patrick.....tell me what you think about Sprint sponsoring NASCAR?? From your perspective, they are not a good fit, right???

 

[Rat]

And yes, I believe it was stated somehwere that Coke was trying to get back, or wanting to take some of the share that Mountain Dew has built up.

Then why not use Vault? If this is about going against Dew than Vault imo is the only chance they got. Dew is a high caffine soda and so is Vault so just rebrand that.

 

[none]

Just curious, if Coca Cola called the World of Outlaws and said we would like to use the Mello Yellow brand to sponsor the series do you think they would say no?

How about AMLS? Or Pro Bull Riding? Or anything else? Hey Chris, if Coca Cola called you and wanted to sponsor your team, would you tell them "Only if I can pick the brand"?

Coke has been with us for 12 years, and they re-uped for at least three more. Does that sound to you like they hate us? Or that they aren't getting a return of the investment?

God, What a bunch of whiners......

Alan

 

[Toejam]

Just curious, if Coca Cola called the World of Outlaws and said we would like to use the Mello Yellow brand to sponsor the series do you think they would say no?

How about AMLS? Or Pro Bull Riding? Or anything else? Hey Chris, if Coca Cola called you and wanted to sponsor your team, would you tell them "Only if I can pick the brand"?

Coke has been with us for 12 years, and they re-uped for at least three more. Does that sound to you like they hate us? Or that they aren't getting a return of the investment?

God, What a bunch of whiners......

Alan

Good point...

 

[Rat]

Coke has been with us for 12 years, and they re-uped for at least three more. Does that sound to you like they hate us? Or that they aren't getting a return of the investment?

Alan

I love to see some of the reports on that. Coke is soooo big that 1. This is not their major piece of the pie and 2. I don't feel they done enough.

They could make this sport bigger; yes, I am concerned about the growth of this sport. They need to sponsor a team or two, they need to take one of their brands and make it 100% devoted to the sport. I don't think anyone is taking the future of this sport into consideration. So what "at least another 3 more years" if there is no proactive promotion behind it we are just gonna keep watching ticket sales decline, cause I don't care how many facebook fans NHRA has it's not selling tickets. I wanna know the brand strength and sales of Mellow-Yellow.

 

[mike]

I'm sorry...I don't see how saying that "Mello Yello" seems like a bit of an odd change from "Full Throttle" is whining

 

[mw6789]

Just curious, if Coca Cola called the World of Outlaws and said we would like to use the Mello Yellow brand to sponsor the series do you think they would say no?

How about AMLS? Or Pro Bull Riding? Or anything else? Hey Chris, if Coca Cola called you and wanted to sponsor your team, would you tell them "Only if I can pick the brand"?

Coke has been with us for 12 years, and they re-uped for at least three more. Does that sound to you like they hate us? Or that they aren't getting a return of the investment?

God, What a bunch of whiners......

Alan

In todays "in the dumpster" economy, its amazing to be able to get a series sponsor at all. And besides, maybe we will get Cole Trickle in a top fueler.

 

[MM]

So what "at least another 3 more years" if there is no proactive promotion behind it we are just gonna keep watching ticket sales decline, cause I don't care how many facebook fans NHRA has it's not selling tickets. I wanna know the brand strength and sales of Mellow-Yellow.

Why is it Coke's job to promote the sport? It's not Castrol's job to promote John Force, it's Force's job to promote their product through visibility so they will continually want to stand behind him. The same can be said with NHRA. It's their job to promote their product so that the Coca-Cola brand will want to stay involved.

 

[Prix-Mo]

This is how I see it, it's been said many times that as drag racers and fans we tend to favor, patronize, and be loyal to those who are involved with our sport, if Coke is trying to gain market share with Mello Yello why not present it to us in hope of growing the brand??

 

[MHayes]

This is how I see it, it's been said many times that as drag racers and fans we tend to favor, patronize, and be loyal to those who are involved with our sport, if Coke is trying to gain market share with Mello Yello why not present it to us in hope of growing the brand??

If you read the SportsBusiness Daily article, you will see just that. Here's an excerpt:

"By shifting the NHRA sponsorship to its Mello Yello brand, Coca-Cola executives hope the company can chip away at PepsiCo’s leadership in the citrus soda category. Pepsi’s Mountain Dew dominates the category, Coca-Cola has struggled to wrestle away some of its market share.

Mountain Dew and Diet Mountain Dew have an 84 share of the citrus segment in the soft drink category, according to Beverage Digest. Mello Yello’s share of the market is just 4 percent.

“Coke’s tried a number of things,” said John Sicher, Beverage Digest’s editor. “They’re now putting more emphasis on Mello Yello. It’s hard to predict the future. The best thing I can say is that Mountain Dew is formidable and competing against it is going to be challenging.”"

 

[Jim]

I'm with you on this one Paul.

I hope NHRA can re-invigorate the brand. I'm still trying to clear whether Mello compete with the Dew or is a completly unique drink.

I hope it's the latter 'cause Coke will be able to develop measurable results. Obviously, that assumes they'll do other tie-ins and not sponsor a zillion other sports.

I've long felt NHRA and Coke made the mistake by trying to market "me too" products (Gatorade/Powerade and Red Bull - Monster etc / Full Throttle) instead of unique. 'Kinda hard to tell if the NHRA has much of a role in increased sales or the brand petering-out.

This'll let big marketing companies know if - and to what degree - NHRA can increase sales for anything other than auto-oriented products.

This is likely a rose colored glasses view, but maybe there is a chance that the Coke company has decided to aggressively re-brand Mello Yello and will be putting a big new marketing push on it, including heavily promoting the drag racing association.

Ok, stop laughing, but stranger things have happened.

 

[TSK]

Before everybody starts jumping all over Coke and NHRA why don't we wait to see what the advertising campaign looks like?
I'll agree the name Mello Yello doesn't seem to fit drag racing. But, at least there is still a title rights sponsor until at least 2016.
Look on the bright side; that means we have at least four more years to b!tch about the way we think NHRA ought to be doing business.

 

[none]

Did you know that there is an outfit that puts on 500 mile races sponsored buy a company called Sprint?

Oh the humanity!

Alan

 

[Buns]

Go to the web site: MelloYello

Starts with a video showing a guy pulling out an LP (yes, a vinyl album) putting it on the turntable, nestling the needle into the first track, settling into a chair, sipping on his mello yello and listening to Donovan singing the signature song. That's it. That's the image of the product they want to convey.

Click on "the beverage" and it says:

That pretty much sums up drag racing to me: "Taking all the time in the world to savor the moment."

Oh, and the website hasn't been updated in two years.

If anything, isn't Drag Racing the '140 characters' version of motorsports? Seems like NASCAR is the whole album plus liner notes.

Meh...

 

[Bob]

Maybe Coke heard Mountain Dew was going to sponsor 2 Funny Cars and a Top Fuel Dragster next year! Just kidding, LOL!

go back and look @ nhra in the 70's. - wildly popular nationwide.
nascar was still stuck in the SE.

In the 70's, drag racing was popular enough for NASCAR to be a drag racing sanctioning body for about three years. As I understand it, the NASCAR Drag Race Division was Bill France Jr's project. As Bill Sr. was getting ready to retire, or at least cut back on his day-to-day involvement in racing, he made dropping the Drag Race Division from NASCAR a requirement for Bill Jr. to take his place.

This was in my mail box yesterday. It is a NASCAR company business envelope from back in the NASCAR drag racing days that I bought on eBay. I think it's a pretty cool piece of history!

 

[onfire]

OUTSTANDING burnout................

 

[NYNitro86]

Sad day....you have to wonder if we were going to wake up one morning and all of the graphics would be changed and NHRA would pretend it was ALWAYS the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series. They don't appear very proud of this. Kinda like your mom making you wear a table cloth shirt to school.

Also, does it strike anyone as really sad that a sponsorship for a 15th place NAPCAR team is more expensive than an NHRA title sponsorship?

I can't wait to see Tony Shumacher waving around his can of Mello Yello in the shut down area.

Plus people would NEVER even know Mello Yello exists currently. After 1994, it just disappeared, Surge came in it's place. then that Died....


I honestly wish Patron would sponsor the series, although I don't think NHRA Would want an Alcoholic product to sponsor them. That's why Winston has nothing to do with the sport anymore. There are a million others that are better options. It's just NHRA is Coke's beyotch for any of the dregs Coke wants to push.

 

[Mike]

I wanna see how far Allen Johnson can toss a can of Mellow Yellow

 

[Joker]

Just curious, if Coca Cola called the World of Outlaws and said we would like to use the Mello Yellow brand to sponsor the series do you think they would say no?

How about AMLS? Or Pro Bull Riding? Or anything else? Hey Chris, if Coca Cola called you and wanted to sponsor your team, would you tell them "Only if I can pick the brand"?

Coke has been with us for 12 years, and they re-uped for at least three more. Does that sound to you like they hate us? Or that they aren't getting a return of the investment?

God, What a bunch of whiners......

Alan

Alan, can you honestly tell me that you believe Coke has done everything they can to promote the sport of drag racing and its Full Throttle brand?

 

[SundayNiagara]

Did you know that there is an outfit that puts on 500 mile races sponsored buy a company called Sprint?

Oh the humanity!

Alan

And what is Sprint getting out of this? NOTHING!