The Brand

This is the OFFICIAL logo for DEI, Dale Earnhardt, Inc., a North Carolina motorsports company.

With all the interest surrounding NASCAR, I chose to take a look at branding and the loyalty a brand represents. Specifically, I narrowed my focus to one particular team that has become the public face of fan loyalty.

The Persuaders provided insight into the current emotional branding methodology. It's everywhere. You buy something, respond to an idea because of what the brand means to you. I searched everywhere for the history the DEI logo and found nothing. So if any of you have information, I'd love to know.

What I did learn is that the name "Earnhardt" evokes a passion akin to a religion. People make pilgrimages to the Earnhardt statue in the middle of his hometown, Kannapolis, North Carolina. In fact, Earnhardt's fans inspired the national best selling novel, St. Dale. http://store.ballowax.com/proddetail.php?prod=wbwf.stdale.

The interesting thing about the DEI Brand and THIS LOGO is that this is NOT the logo that inspires all the brand loyalty. It's the good old number 3. See the next entry.

Lovemark

This is NOT the official DEI logo. However it is the most recognized and most emotional logo in the racing world. It inspires joy, tears and fierce loyalty. Race fans are among the most brand-loyal in the United States. It is truly a lovemark in its purest definition.

A series on brand loyalty by ABC News 20/20 in 2001 showed that 90 percent of race fans purchase their driver's sponsored products regularly. The connection to the brand is aspirational.

Fans want to belong to a larger community of like-minded people.

According to AdWeek, it was downloadeded, printed and sold more than 10,000 times a day in 2006.

A similar study conducted by UNC Charlotte found this symbol ranked in the top 25 among logos that respondants correctly identified and recognized. That puts the number three in the same league as Coca Cola, Sony, Nike and Apple.

Truly Personal Connections

The closer the image appears to the fan, the closer the fan feels to anything Dale Earnhardt. Here you see the officially licensed number on underwear. They even make available on thongs.