When international brewing company, Anheuser-Busch, shifted its sponsorship of NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick from Budweiser to Busch earlier this year, the branding change involved more than simply re-skinning Harvick’s No. 4 stock car. It also meant a shift in national branding for the A-B label, pushing Busch beer to the foreground for the first time since 2007.
With Bud taking a backseat, the beer producer set out to partner with Phoenix International Raceway, or PIR, as it’s known on the racing circuit, and rebrand the existing SPEED Cantina restaurant graphics at the track to the new Busch Garage.
A fan-favorite located just outside Turn 2, the sports bar and grill site, formerly sponsored by the SPEED Channel, features custom furniture, flat panel TVs and live music, and offers racing-themed food and drink specials during each race weekend.
The Busch rebrand meant that all of the existing SPEED elements and interior signage, as well as the custom fabricated exterior signs, all of which featured a vibrant red, SPEED and Budweiser’s signature colors, would need to be updated to the newer blue Busch graphics.
As bluemedia now enters its 7th year as the Preferred Signage & Graphics Provider for the track, completing an array of banners, raceway graphics and more at the start of every season, PIR also brought us in to transform the space and add to the entire fan and brand experience, from vinyl wall, window, tabletop and concessions graphics, to custom fabricated channel letters, sign faces and illuminated sign cabinets.
A very sincere THANK YOU for all your help in getting everything produced and installed for the 2016 season. With the changes to the series logo and the facility this was no easy task. I greatly appreciate everything you did to make it happen.