Circle K Stores Joins Andretti Autosport’s Sponsor Lineup
The new sponsorship program begins with this weekend's IZOD IndyCar Series event at Iowa Speedway.
For more than 50 years, Circle K has been one of North America's most popular and successful operators of convenience stores. Circle K is a property of Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. ("Couche-Tard"), North America's largest independent convenience store operator in terms of number of company-operated stores. It owes this foremost positioning to the 53,000 people working in its stores and executive offices and reaches annual revenues of over $15.8 billion.
Welcoming some 25 million visitors every week, its stores offer a broad mix of food products, beverages, other merchandise and services and motor fuel. Grouped under three main brands — Couche-Tard, Mac's and Circle K — its stores feature a friendly, modern setting, and most of them are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Couche-Tard network has a total of over 5,800 stores, which are located across all 10 Provinces of Canada and across 42 American states and the District of Columbia. In addition, a network of about 3,700 licensees extends in nine other regions worldwide, including China, Guam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and Mexico.
The Circle K program will run in a collaborative effort with longtime Andretti Autosport sponsor Dr Pepper Snapple Group ("DPSG"), which utilizes the team's racing program to market multiple brands – including Sun Drop Citrus Soda, Venom Energy Drink, Dr Pepper and Snapple.
The presence of a large, international convenience store within Andretti Autosport's IndyCar program leverages Andretti Autosport's expertise in packaging retail-based sponsorships with major consumer packaged goods companies.
JIM KING, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL PROCUREMENT, CIRCLE K PROCUREMENT, LLC:
"We at Circle K are very excited to have this opportunity to partner with DPSG as well as Andretti Autosport. We feel that our brand fits into the IndyCar racing segment very well, and are looking forward to developing a great partnership and a great racing season."
JOHN LOPES, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER,
ANDRETTI AUTOSPORT:
"The addition of Circle K to the Andretti Autosport sponsor family is significant and a retail affiliation we are very excited about. Circle K brings a broad national and international reach to our sponsor base and the potential to reach millions of fans through co-promotions and customer-focused sales initiatives. As a team, we have a wealth of experience in running successful programs around both grocery and convenience store platforms. We believe this can become another shining star of sponsorship programs within our industry."