Round Rock Express: The sights, sounds, and a masterful marketing moment

The crack of the bat; the roar of the crowd; the emphatic ‘you’re out!!’ yell from the umpire – all signs of the great American pastime: Baseball.

My wife and I spent a leisurely evening at the Round Rock Express game last Friday night and not only enjoyed the game (despite the home team losing 10-4), but were also floored by one sterling, sensational marketing event that had the crowd buzzing.

If you’ve been to a Round Rock Express game recently, or any professional sporting event in the last decade for that matter, you’ve seen how ‘advertisements’ play a constant role in the pulse of the venue.

The outfield walls are lined with the logos of paying sponsors; a vendor is distributing free pizza outside the ballpark – even the foul pole is adorned with a company’s tour de force.

Between innings, the scoreboard becomes a focal point as ‘dot races’ and games move fans to pick sides. Take that Section 103!! The big marketing moment, however, was nearly upon us.

During one ‘relatively quiet’ moment in the action, the public address announcer bellowed the following:

“Attention please, if you are the owner of the car with Texas license plate: XJFL3J, please report to the ticket booth near the 1st base line. We would like to congratulate you on having the dirtiest car in the parking lot. Mister Car Wash has awarded you a free car wash.”

Everyone in the ballpark immediately stopped what they were doing and looked at the scoreboard.

The license plate on the big screen AND the Mister Car Wash logo were getting prime-time attention from everyone in that ballpark.

This is very clever marketing from the Round Rock Express and Mister Car Wash.

I know for a fact that the other ‘between inning’ advertisements did not get nearly the positive response that Mister Car Wash did.

Until next time,
Dan Naden