For photos from the Meadowlands contact Lisaphoto@playmeadowlands.com

Sunday, October 4, 2009

An Easy Good Will Event

With a break in the action at Lexington after yesterday's Kentucky Futurity (a recap of the race is available here) it seems like a good time to talk about building good will within our communities. In the past we have discussed the need for racetracks to become more involved in their community. While it may not increase a racetrack's bottom line, it never hurts to have good will within your community. Corporations have recognized this for years.

Harrington Raceway in Delaware recognizes the need for good will within their community. The raceway is hosting an event for the Kent County SPCA to encourage the adoption of homeless dogs and cats. Take a look at the following publicity video for the event featuring Corey Callahan as spokesman.



An animal adoption drive is a perfect marketing opportunity. You don't even need to have it during your regular live program. Being adoption fairs tend to attract families, why not schedule it for a Saturday morning while you are racing your qualifiers? This way you can expose people who many not normally attend the races to harness racing in a non-threatening setting.

Events like this helps give harness racing a boost of good will in the community. You never heard any company say they have too much good will within their community so it puzzles me why more tracks are not hosting events like this; you don't need to be a small track to have an event like this. It seems like a 'no brainer' which certainly wouldn't stress any racetrack's budget. Can't find an animal shelter or rescue group(s) to work with? There are other types of events a racetrack can host which will generate good will within the community and provide free publicity from the local media.

No comments: