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March 13, 2002 Issue

Drakkar Expects Sweet Smell of Success With Nascar

Think of the products that sponsor auto racing: beer, motor oil or paint may come to mind; not things that smell good. Yet in an attempt to become relevant again to younger men, the highfalutin fragrance Drakkar Noir, whose characteristics seem more akin to blue blood than blue collar, is aligning itself to Nascar and its darling, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

In a $10 million marketing push that includes everything from print ads and product samples to decals on Dale Junior’s uniform and his famous #8 race car, L’Oréal USA hopes to reinvent its Drakkar brand, whose heyday was more than a dozen years ago. Although the world of auto racing is a place where highbrow products have never seemed to belong, L’Oréal USA says Daytona and Talledega, not Fifth Avenue, will ensure an effective makeover.

"Someone had to be first," says Jack Wiswall, president of Designer Fragrances, a division of L’Oréal USA, itself a unit of the world’s largest cosmetics company, L’Oréal SA of France. "I have the feeling a lot of people are going to be coming in behind us."

And why not? Other premium brands are leaping over into never-been-before marketing territories. David Morrison recently visited a motorcycle dealership near Radnor, PA, and saw DKNY, the logo for popular designer Donna Karan New York, displayed on an 18-wheeler that hauls bikes to races.

"This follows the same business model [as Drakkar] except that Nascar’s even more mainstream," says Mr. Morrison, who is president of TWENTYSOMETHING Inc., a marketing and brand consultancy. "The first thought that comes to mind is whether there’s a disconnect here between the [Drakkar] brand and its current users and auto racing and Dale Earnhardt Jr. But there has been a paradigm shift in auto racing. It’s becoming more mainstream, hipper."

Indeed auto racing has become one of the most popular spectator sports in the nation, surpassing hockey and behind only football and basketball.

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