A throwaway line in Newgarden’s ad about how he “loves the smell of unleaded gasoline” amid images of him in a stylized fragrance ad for the fake cologne “Ethanol” led to online clamor for a tie-in souvenir. Eventually, a giant bottle of it appeared with Newgarden near the track at St. Petersburg and at other races. Fox marketer Shelby Romero then proposed a collaboration with an actual cologne retailer, which led to a pre-Indy 500 appearance by Newgarden with the fragrance at Macy’s Herald Square on May 21.
“If it’s a national competition, if it’s Team USA playing in soccer or hockey or any event, the personalities and the individuals probably don’t come into play quite as much as the uniform,” Gottlieb said. “But outside of those sports, the need to have personalities and to have individuals that people care about and want to see perform is really important—whether that’s NASCAR, IndyCar, MLB, college football, or beyond—knowing the players and feeling like you care about their performance is always an integral part of bringing people into the sport and into viewing it on on our networks.”
Forming a race team
While Fox has been taking its Big Spill milk bottle and race car installation to local Fox affiliates across the U.S. to gather interest for Indianapolis 500 coverage, it’s also had IndyCar figures, including Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal, along to explain the race’s intricacies and history—including why winners drink milk (1936 winner Louis Meyer just liked buttermilk).
The faces and stories behind the wheel at this year’s Indianapolis 500 have been invaluable to Fox and IndyCar’s marketing efforts. Gottlieb noted that, since 2021, O’Ward has finished second at the Indy 500 twice and within the Top 5 three times. In his last interview in Indianapolis, visibly and audibly emotional after coming so close to victory, he closed by thanking the crowd for its cheers, saying they “made Indianapolis a home for me.”
