Creating Custom Content That Stands On Its Own

North Carolina’s Moonshine & Motorsports Trail

Sponsored content with influencers and creators is one of the most effective forms of advertising today. It combines authenticity and a highly engaged audience to create a lasting impression between brands and their customers.

But what if you don’t want to simply sponsor an episode or entitle a podcast? What if you want the content to stand on its own?

This was the mission from North Carolina’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. They commissioned a series of custom content pieces covering everything from video, web, print, and even to the race track, all to highlight their newly created Moonshine & Motorsports Trail.

The trail highlights North Carolina’s unique role in the history of both moonshining and NASCAR, starting with distilleries hidden among the mountains and ending with the first lineup of professional stock car racers.

Hitting the Trail

The centerpiece of their campaign was a six episode mini-series, hosted by Out of the Groove’s Eric Estepp. Each episode featured multiple stops along the way of the state’s Moonshine & Motorsports Trail, with guests ranging from NASCAR drivers to museum curators to race track owners each offering unique insight into the stops along the trail.

The video tour even culminated with the Moonshine & Motorsports Trail show car on display for fans at NASCAR’s historic return to North Wilkesboro Speedway.

Go see my @CLTMotorSpdwy car at the Moonshine & Motorsports tent tomorrow if you are at @NorthWilksboro plus @EricEstepp17 will be there! pic.twitter.com/ZKK5vwCOnP

— Brennan Poole (@brennanpoole) May 20, 2023

But about that show car…

Around the Track

The show car at North Wilkesboro was actually only a preview of the real race car, which hit the track at NASCAR’s own Charlotte Motor Speedway. Driven by Brennan Poole, the car represented the program at their home track.

Nothing connects your brand with NASCAR fans quite like a partnership with a race team, and the Moonshine & Motorsports Trail No. 6 Chevrolet was definitely a hit with fans.

So the folks behind the Moonshine& Motorsports Trail created their own limited series of YouTube videos, at track events, and their own car on the track. How do you bring all of this together?

The Central Hub

All of the content created for the Moonshine & Motorsports Trail was curated on its own vertical on the Daily Downforce, our NASCAR media outlet serving over 250,000 NASCAR fans.

Pulling together all of the custom content makes the content more available and accessible through search algorithms, not to mention the Daily Downforce’s considerable reach on social media (over 3 million impressions per month).

Next year their content offerings will expand even further, this time to include their own podcast series hosted by the most credible NASCAR historians in the business.

How Does It Work?

All of the custom content pieces, from the videos to the track events to the websites, are available to our clients. We pair our partners together with the most high-impact influencers in the space and collaborate to develop unique and interesting content that goes far beyond even what a sponsored influencer post can accomplish.

By the Numbers