FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TOYOTA RACING ANNOUNCES SPONSAFIER 3 CONTEST
Contest Offers Fans a Chance to Hang Out with Their Favorite Toyota NASCAR Driver
DAYTONA, Fla. (February 20, 2011) -Toyota Racing today announced the third round of its popular Sponsafier contest, where fans can design and enter their own NASCAR Sprint Cup car at http://www.toyotaracing.com/ http://www.toyotaracing.com from now until March 20, 2011. This year’s contest raises the stakes and gives one lucky fan the opportunity to receive a visit from his or her favorite Toyota NASCAR driver away from the race track.
“This campaign has taken on a life of its own,” said Ed Laukes, corporate motorsports marketing manager for Toyota. “One of the best things about Sponsafier is the personal side that has come along with it — our ability to reach out and touch fans and see some of the causes they are passionate about. It’s really refreshing for us to be able to interact with fans.
The prize for the winning car design this year will be the opportunity to spend a day with a driver, and it will be interesting to see what our fans have in store for a Toyota NASCAR driver.” Sponsafier 3 will be introduced with the 60 second “Bromance” TV commercial featuring Kyle Busch during Sunday’s Daytona 500 broadcast. Two additional TV commercials will include Toyota drivers Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin, with appearances by Joe Gibbs, Darrell Waltrip and Martin Truex Jr. Each commercial documents a fan’s wild daydreams as they imagine what they would do with their favorite driver for a day.
“Shooting the commercial was cool,” said Busch, driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota Camry.
“Now that we’re not rookies in making these Toyota commercials any longer, I was allowed to have a little creative input into my commercial this year. I don’t want to give away too much, but it has to do with car numbers and mailboxes.
My idea was something for the fans to have fun with, but they should also know that it wasn’t meant to be taken too seriously either.
It makes it fun that we get to share our own ideas and see them incorporated in the final product.” The Sponsafier 3 site is all-new for 2011 and offers innovative ways to create, customize and share designs. The completely redesigned site includes: Live “Sponsafeed” that scrolls across the top of the website. Users can view tweets from their favorite Toyota NASCAR drivers being updated in real-time and watch as their ranking on the site improves as they design, enter and share more cars.
“Photokit” which gives users the opportunity to place their sponsafied car in a high-resolution, three- dimensional environment. Users can choose from different 3D environments to take pictures of their designs at almost any angle they choose.
New custom graphics, including categories such as food and pets.
Fans can create as many designs as they like and are encouraged to share their work on social networking sites to rally votes from friends, family and admirers of their designs. The public will vote to determine the top-10 approved designs. From there, a final round of public voting and a panel of judges comprised of Toyota executives and NASCAR personalities will select the grand prize winner. Along with a visit from his or her favorite Toyota driver, the grand prize winner will also receive the opportunity to have their car design showcased at the Sprint All-Star race (May 21, 2011) at Charlotte Motor Speedway, as well as a prize pack of Toyota Racing gear. For official contest details, visit http://www.toyotaracing.com/ www.ToyotaRacing.com.
About Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A., Inc. is the marketing, sales, distribution and customer service arm of Toyota, Lexus and Scion. Established in 1957, TMS markets products and services through a network of more than 1,500 Toyota, Lexus and Scion dealers which sold more than 1.77 million vehicles in 2009. Toyota directly employs more than 30,000 people in the U.S. and its investment here is currently valued at more than $18 billion. For more information about Toyota, visit http://www.toyota.com/ www.toyota.com or http://www.toyotanewsroom.com/ www.toyotanewsroom.com.
