Toyota, Lexus Team Up for Monday Night Football Promos
Toyota, Lexus and ESPN have teamed up to launch a host of promotions that will include print, radio and the Internet elements tied to ESPN’s Monday Night Football 2006-2007 season. The promotions center around Toyota’s [http://www.toyota.com] and Lexus’s [http://www.lexus.com] sponsorships of ESPN’s Monday Night Football halftime show. Beginning Sept. 11, Lexus will sponsor 17 telecasts and Toyota will sponsor eight.
“We always look for good partners that align perfectly with our brand and gets what Lexus is all about,” said Greg Thome, spokesperson, Lexus. “Our brand theme is the ‘passionate pursuit of perfection’ and [ESPN] really understood that we wanted to take a program like this to the next level.”
The Monday Night Football viewership encompasses a broad audience “and we certainly recognize that Lexus buyers are out there among the viewing public,” Thome said.
A yet-to-be launched micro-site at ESPN.com will host The Lexus Perfect Play and Monday Night Surround presented by Toyota promotions.
The Lexus Perfect Play promotion will give fans a chance to vote on their favorite play from Sunday’s football games. The winning play will air Mondays when Lexus sponsors the halftime show. Each week, one fan could win The Perfect Fan Experience, a three-day trip to New York City and ESPN Studios in Bristol, CT.
The Monday Night Surround presented by Toyota promotion will include games and content tied to Monday Night Football match-ups in which fans compete against each other to show their passion for their teams. During every Toyota-sponsored night, ESPN will air a 15-second segment highlighting fans’ activities from competing cities.
Meanwhile, during halftime shows, Toyota and Lexus brands will be featured in the opening and closing graphics, in ESPN The Magazine, on ESPN Radio and on ESPN’s news and information show SportsCenter.
Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed. Last year, automakers spent $8.45 billion in advertising domestically, down 3.7% from 2004, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
Earlier this month, Torrance, CA-based Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. signed a deal to become the exclusive sponsor of the Sunday Night Football Halftime Show on NBC, which begins in August. The show will be used to promote the automaker’s full-size Tundra pickup truck.
In a separate development, Toyota on Monday renewed its presenting sponsorship of the 2006 Life Time Fitness Triathlon to be held in July. The company will award a 2006 Toyota Rav4 to the winner of the event while also highlighting the sport utility vehicle onsite. The triathlon’s course runs through St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Toyota markets its products and services through a network of 1,400 Toyota, Lexus and Scion dealers in 49 states. Lexus is a division of Toyota.
