IndyCar And France
AN ENTRY STRATEGY THAT CHANGED MY PERCEPTIONS.
This international entry strategy was done for the international marketing course taught by Professor Fedorikhin at Kelley Indianapolis. This work was not done for IndyCar and it does not represent the company.
I took Professor Fedorikhin’s international marketing class as an elective, but I genuinely believe it was one of my most pivotal classes. Working on this entry strategy was really the first time I had to take a concept I already knew and loved and sell it in a completely new way. It was eye-opening to see how much of what I had learned about marketing stayed consistent, and how even more of what I had learned changed entirely in an international market.
The task for this final project was to choose a company and a country it had never done business in, and then figure out how to get the company in that country (basically). I chose IndyCar and France because I’ve always been a fan of the series, and I’d taken years of French classes so I had an understanding of the country and culture.
Once my selections had been approved, I started by putting together a research outline with all of the information I needed to find, split up by the section of the report it belonged to. With big projects like this, I like to have a good grasp of as much information as I can before I set my mind on a specific strategy. It helps to avoid situations where I think I have everything figured out, and then the next information I find changes everything – which almost happened here.
I knew racing was popular in France. I didn’t know that would change everything.
After getting all of the research done, I moved on to the cultural and economic analysis of France. From there, I dove into building the strategy. I thought it would be relatively straightforward, given that France has a rich history with motorsports and hosts one of the most prestigious races in the world. However, I had to take everything I knew about the sport and look at it through an entirely new lens. I realized the consumer perception of IndyCar in the international market would be drastically different from that of the domestic market, which meant I had to get creative. I took each piece of the strategy and found a solution that stayed true to IndyCar while also meeting the consumers where they were, then took those pieces and adjusted until they fit together. You can take a look at the summary presentation and the full written strategy by clicking the included images and button, respectively.
I had a lot of freedom with my approach to this, which I was incredibly grateful for. While working on 6 other high-stakes projects simultaneously (including the IMS audit!), it was nice to have something I could turn to that acted more as a passion project for me. It was challenging, but it was a lot of fun to take two things that I knew and loved and figure out the puzzle of bringing them together.
I’d like to reiterate that all of the work displayed on this page was done independently of IndyCar and that the analysis and strategy displayed are in no way representative of the company.
