Product placement: VCU and NASCAR

If your college logo can be found on a racecar…no, this isn’t the set up for the latest “You Might be a Redneck” joke by Jeff Foxworthy. As reported in the March 31 edition of The Commonwealth Times “NASCAR Winston Cup Driver Hermie Sadler, Gov. Mark Warner, and B.J. Burton, associate athletic director for marketing and promotions, unveiled VCU’s Winston Cup car recently.” According to the article, this is part of “Go Team Va., a partnership between Sadler motor sports and four Virginia universities. Cars from VCU, the University of Virginia, James Madison University and Virginia Polytechnic and State University will compete in a minimum of six NASCAR Winston Cup series events in 2003 and 2004.”
I know the question on everyone’s mind, as it has been plaguing mine of late. Why on earth, particularly in this time of budget cuts so severe that students have to supply their own scantron sheets for some classes, is VCU concerned with having a logo on a racecar?
Granted, I’m not a big NASCAR fan, but I’m aware that this sport can be highly dangerous and occasionally results in cars being totaled after colliding with another car, or a stationary object such as a wall.
The article did not explicitly state that VCU has paid to have the design placed on the car, but somehow I doubt that NASCAR was beating down the door to be affiliated with our prestigious school.
Why then would the school decide on such a risky investment? After all, the car could end up as a very nicely designed black and gold cube of plastic and spare parts. The conclusion that I’ve come to is that it is the same reason that Tide and Home Depot pay to have their products advertised on cars or used in movies. It’s what’s known as product placement, which is the idea that if you make your products visible to large groups of people, particularly through association with things that they enjoy such as movies or watching races, they will be more likely to purchase your product.
Perhaps VCU figures that by getting their name out there, they can attract money from corporations who might want to use our logos, as well as attract more students to the campus with a more hip image. Both of which would be more likely if the VCU car does well in events it’s scheduled to be driven in.
Of course, this brings up the question of whether this is really the best image for VCU? Is our education simply a commodity to go to the highest bidder?
There are those out there, I’m sure, who recall the fight to get McDonalds out of the University Student Commons; will history repeat itself with NASCAR or whatever corporate giant that follows it? I would like to think that the answer is no, but given the drive, no pun intended, to update our image here on campus with the new dining hall and phase three of the Commons, I fear that it may indeed be the case that history will repeat.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a capitalist, I think making money is a good thing and if VCU is able to offset the statewide budget cuts by attracting corporate contracts and money, then financially speaking it’s a good idea.
Who knows, perhaps departments will once again be able to afford paper if this works to VCU’s advantage. Of course, we’ll be contractually obligated to buy only a certain brand of paper, but hey, paper’s paper just like an education’s education. We’ll just have to write around the Nike “swoosh” at the top of each page.