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Game on?
Or something like that…
Womanizer, a “sexual wellness brand,” is launching a campaign against NASCAR, after claiming that the sport rejected their bid to sponsor a car in 2025, despite the fact that they have had men’s men’s sexual wellness brands Viagra and ExtenZE as sponsors in the past.
According to MediaPost, Womanizer alleges that they had a call with NASCAR in July of 2024, where people from the sponsorship team cited the “family-friendly” nature of the sport as a reason why they didn’t see them as a fit. They didn’t make any decisions at the time, but later in August, they emailed Womanizer the following statement:
“Our organization would pass on the opportunity at this time.”
Well, this sparked a conversation within Womanizer, where they felt as a whole that there is a double standard in sports marketing when it comes to what is “allowed” with male and female-oriented brands, and decided to create an entire in-house creative campaign, which includes putting up a billboard directly across from Daytona International Speedway this week, which is the first week of the 2025 NASCAR season.
One of the biggest races of the year, there will certainly be a lot of eyes on Daytona, as there always is, and the billboard will be up through March 3rd. They also had a mobile billboard going around the Speedway yesterday, during Daytona 500 Media Day, in an effort to catch the attention of journalists there to cover the race.
Verena Singmann, PR head for Womanizer, says they’re not just mad about their sponsorship getting rejected… they want to bring awareness to what they believe is a “larger cultural bias”:
“This isn’t just about one sponsorship rejection. This is about addressing a larger cultural bias. Sexual wellness and pleasure are not things we need to shy away from — it is a part of everyday life. Just like the other industries NASCAR has chosen to embrace. We hope this campaign will encourage NASCAR to rethink its approach and recognize the importance of varied sponsors.”
While sponsors in the men’s sexual wellness space have been limited in racing, Viagra was a major NASCAR sponsor in the early 2000’s, and in 2022, GAINSWave (erectile dysfunction treatment) was a co-sponsor. It’s unclear if NASCAR offered the sponsorship to teams and they all turned it down, or how far the extent of their conversations with Womanizer went. We’ve reached out for clarification and will update accordingly.
In general, the NASCAR sponsors do lean towards the male demographic, and that’s obviously because the majority of their diehard fans are men… now that doesn’t mean I don’t think there’s room to expand, and think they should make more of a real effort to bring more women in.
I’m a longtime NASCAR fan (I also grew up in North Carolina, so that helped), and a lot of my friends like racing too, so I actually do think there’s a lot of potential there if they really wanted to make a concerted effort to broaden their female fanbase.
In that sense, I agree with Womanizer, but to be honest, if NASCAR is so family-friendly, they should probably just stay away from the realm of “sexual wellness” altogether, but it’s obviously their prerogative to pick and choose the sponsors they want to associate their brand with. And for those unfamiliar, Womanizer makes sex toys for women… so also have to imagine that your average Cup Series driver might not want that on the hood.
In a post on Instagram, Womanizer shared:
“NASCAR has accepted brands that cater to men’s intimacy and performance – why is women’s pleasure where they draw the line? Smells like double standards to us.”
From a marketing standpoint, Womanizer is definitely smart to go about it this way, and the billboard… well, it’s brilliant. And pink… they get extra points for that. I do believe all sports could use more pink.
They’ll probably get a million times more publicity from people Googling what’s up with this billboard than they would with anything else, honestly… it’s savage:
“Not on the track, still coming first.”
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, NASCAR. This is proof:
The post Sex Toy Brand Launches Daytona Billboard Campaign Against NASCAR After Allegedly Being Rejected As A Sponsor first appeared on Whiskey Riff.