Can Mathieu van der Poel or Harrie Lavreysen dislodge Max Verstappen as the number 1 Dutch sportsman?

agreed, maybe NOBODY in myrtle beach knows who max is. but i’ll tell you what, the first time i see a six foot cutout of MATHIEU in a grocery store in kentucky or mississippi, i’ll let you know, brother…

Why would Alpacin or advertise in Kentucky or Mississipi? And as Canyon don’t sell through stores, you’d not even see him where maybe some might expect there.

Am sure you won’t find cardboard cutouts of many other legendary athletes, not because they’re more or less effective as personalities but for two very obvious (to marketeers) reasons, firstly, most aren’t associated with a product people there could be interested in or the manufacture feels comfortable pushing there and second, because their sport doesn’t convey an interesting message to the stereotype population there.

F1 (like Nascar) is seen as a virile embodiment of success and speaks to many emulators and wannabees, cycling, even if far harder and needing more courage, discipline and dedication doesn’t convey that or even recognition/admiration to anyone outside its hardcore fanbase.

It’s a little like the school playground mentality, most easily swayed gullible kids look up to a lazy smoker more than some discreet focused kid studying and untempted to fall into the « traps » of cool consumption.

Why do you think the past of motorracing was dominated by money from alcohol and tobacco? Red Bull is just a smart replacement for the niche left empty after being excluded from advertising and is a prime example of how smartly pumping enough into advertising a product of no particular interest will work, the stuff is pretty sickly but as a mixer, helps beginners overcome the bad taste of alcohols.

Incidently, to understand the difference in target audience even better, if you’ve ever spent any time analysing the litter people strew around along events, roads, in the middle of nature even you can get a pretty good idea of their lifestyle, priorities and attitudes

Taking drinks as an easy starter, despite people drinking as much milk as coke or red bull and as much bottled water as beer or alcohol, you’ll find very few of the first lying around and plenty of the latter, marketeers know EXACTLY who to target where and how and they’d do a better job of it on internet if the platforms were more efficient at helping them reaching their target audience.