Dumped sponsor keeps relationship alive with breakup campaign /

In 2020, Supercars Australia scrapped a longtime sponsor of the Bathurst 1000 motor racing event, the Australian auto parts and accessories retailer Supercheap Auto (SCA). Supercars replaced SCA, which had been a naming rights sponsor for 16 years, with another automotive accessories retailer called Repco.

That year, SCA appointed agency The Monkeys (part of Accenture Interactive), which launched a campaign in response to the ‘breakup’. In a series of spoof press conferences, Nathan Murray, an SCA PR representative, navigated the various stages of ending a relationship (heartbreak, apologies, bargaining), confessing the brand’s love for the Bathurst 1000 and vowing to stick by the event no matter what.

In December last year, The Monkeys and SCA followed up with a different tongue-in-cheek sponsorship: 1000 Bathursts. This time, the campaign follows Nathan through the town of Bathurst, Australia, as he introduces new sponsors including the Supercheap Auto Mowerland and Heating, the Supercheap Auto Bathurst Bakery and the Supercheap Auto Bathurst under-13 netball team. In addition to sponsoring 1,000 ‘Bathursts’, SCA has claimed it will pass on the savings from its sponsorship fees to Club Plus members.

The campaign aired in the lead-up to and throughout the race coverage (30 November – 5 December 2021) across TV, social, online and in-store across Australia and New Zealand. ‘They say if you love them, let them go,’ said Ant Keogh, chief creative officer at The Monkeys, Melbourne, in a press release. ‘Instead, we went by the principle that if you love them, turn your infatuation into an ad campaign.’

Benjamin Ward, managing director of Supercheap Auto, added, ‘There is no bigger fan of the Bathurst 1000 than Supercheap Auto. We have been part of the Bathurst fabric for 16 years and it only makes sense that the next stage of our journey is to thank those people who have stood alongside us for all that time.’