Equity Marketing Signs Multi-Year Licensing and Distribution Deal with NASCAR
20 May 1998
LOS ANGELES--Equity Marketing Inc. has announced that it has signed a three-year licensing and distribution agreement with NASCAR, the governing body of U.S. stock car racing.As a result, the company's newly formed Equity Collectibles business unit -- created to access the high volume collectible pin trading business -- will have rights to design, produce and distribute NASCAR-related collectible pins for three years.
The agreement, which stipulates Equity Marketing's creation of The NASCAR Pin Registry within the Worldwide Pin Registry (WPR), also designates a permanent link on the NASCAR website (www.nascar.com) to Equity Marketing's WPR website (www.pinregistry.com).
The contract also calls for Equity Marketing to load weekly advertising and Pin of the Week information into the NASCAR site, and to create and manage NASCAR Pin Trading villages, kiosks featuring various collectibles, at all NASCAR-sponsored events by late 1998 or early 1999. All NASCAR pins will carry the Worldwide Pin Registry symbol and will be listed within the WPR.
"Our agreement with NASCAR represents tremendous progress in our strategy to further diversify revenue sources by pursuing non-entertainment related opportunities," said Donald A. Kurz, Equity Marketing's president and co-CEO. "This is a great beginning for the Equity Collectibles business unit. In addition to the work with NASCAR, this unit of the company will focus on seeking out future contracts within the growing lapel pin market," added Kurz.
"We are very excited about our relationship with Equity Marketing, Inc.," said Elizabeth Schlosser, director of licensing and consumer products at NASCAR. "The creation and registration of NASCAR collectible lapel pins is a development I am sure will be warmly received by fans. Our goal with Equity Marketing is to provide new marketing and revenue resources for our tracks and drivers. A new pin will be created for each race that features the track and the winning driver of the race."
Equity Marketing designs, develops, produces and markets worldwide a broad range of consumer products, collectibles and promotional products incorporating licensed characters from films, television, sports, publishing and other sources.
This news release contains forward-looking statements. The company wishes to caution readers that all forward-looking statements are necessarily speculative and not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Actual results could vary materially from those anticipated for a variety of reasons, including, without limitation, the potential cancellation and/or delay of promotions due to delays in release of the theatrical motion pictures, the failure of the company to obtain promotions projects based on these motion pictures at anticipated levels, the success or failure of a specific motion picture or television property, the loss of existing licenses or the inability to renew or extend licenses under favorable terms, consumer demand for its products, the company's dependence on a single customer, quarterly fluctuations in financial results and increases in international tariff rates, which would increase the company's cost of sales. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements, which may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
CONTACT:
Dan Klores Associates Public Relations
Greg Gibson/Arshia Radpour, 310/271-0600
