Consumer prices are constantly rising, but Straight Talk Wireless has kept its Silver Unlimited plan at the same price for the last 17 years. To highlight that value proposition, the brand fully leaned into nostalgia marketing, transporting NASCAR fans back to the late aughts—when songs like “Just Dance” and “I Gotta Feeling” were taking over the airwaves—with its “Same Price Since 2009” activation.
During the Straight Talk Wireless 500 weekend, March 5-8, the brand invited fans at the Phoenix Raceway to step into the “good old days” by playing retro racing games on the Nintendo Wii (originally released in 2006) and getting swag items airbrushed. While attendees waited in line, an emcee hosted a “The Price Is Right”-style game where they guessed how much items cost in 2009, and the answers were surprising.
“If it’s experiential, it needs to make you feel something. It can’t just be a sign or a billboard, because our brand was everywhere at the racetrack, but it wasn’t the same as this experiential station… The nostalgia brought that feel to people,” says Mike Sarcone, vp-commercial growth at Verizon Value. “[NASCAR] has its own nuances about the sport, and so one of the things that we found is there’s a term in NASCAR called ‘holding the line.’ We were able to work that into our brand phrasing, like we’re not willing to budge on the price.”
The experience fused the nostalgia theme with racing, including checkered flag design details, a pit stop challenge that had fans competing for the top score on a leaderboard, and an AI-powered photo op that placed participants in drivers’ shoes, holding a trophy in a victory lane celebration.
Straight Talk also partnered with two NASCAR drivers, Noah Gragson and Joey Logano, who drew the biggest crowds to the booth for meet-and-greets. “It was like gangbusters,” Sarcone notes.
“Whenever we do an event, we need to have that kind of moment because it really gets the awareness. But then also the pre-work that we did with NASCAR to collaborate on how the brand would show up and understanding all of the assets that were available as the entitlement sponsor of the race, the colors, the logos, and figuring out what works for that demographic,” he says. “At the race, we had other brands coming up to our section, asking us for advice. They said, ‘Your brand just looks like it fits. How did you do it?’”
Leveraging Social Content Beyond Race Day
The driver partnerships extended to social media, and fans were enthusiastic about the content that came out before, during and after the event, with Straight Talk noticing lots of interaction on collaborative posts with influencers, drivers and Phoenix Raceway.
Straight Talk launched its “Win to Wave” sweepstakes on Instagram. Users could enter by following the brand and commenting how many years they’ve been a NASCAR fan on a sweepstakes post that featured Logano. The winner received a trip for two to the Straight Talk Wireless 500 with VIP access and the opportunity to wave the green flag to start the race.
“Having the racer take over the page and do the sweepstakes, we saw a 6-percentage point increase in engagement rate,” Sarcone says.
Engaging Fans in New Cities
An Official Wireless Partner of NASCAR, Straight Talk usually sponsors the race held at Homestead-Miami Speedway because it’s near the brand’s headquarters, but this year, it went to the race in Phoenix—a move that created new opportunities.
“The response was amazing at Phoenix. It’s kind of a more iconic track that people know,” Sarcone says. “That was another learning for us: The event that you support also matters because you get access to a different group of people, a different fanbase in different markets, so for us, it was good.”
In addition to serving as the race’s entitlement sponsor, Straight Talk is popping up at 200-plus Walmart locations in key race markets throughout the 2026 season with NASCAR on Tour.
The fan experience offers driver meet-and-greets, photo ops with the Straight Talk Wireless 500 trophy and the No. 4 Straight Talk Ford Mustang car, NASCAR racing simulators, exclusive branded swag, and contests to win race tickets and other prizes, including a new 2026 Ford Mustang.
“Even if you can’t make it to the racetrack, or you don’t have time or tickets to go to the race, if you just go to Walmart, you can still connect and experience Straight Talk and NASCAR,” says Sarcone. “For the Straight Talk brand, NASCAR is it for us. We think it’s a very clean fit with our customer. We’re exclusively distributed in Walmart and have high market share in suburban and rural America. NASCAR is a sport that has a very strong overlap with our target segment.”
Community Impact
Straight Talk didn’t leave Phoenix without contributing to the local community. The brand made a $10,000 donation to the NASCAR Foundation in support of youth-focused programming, which included the Speediatrics Fun Day Festival benefiting the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley on March 6.
“Straight Talk is a brand that we also want to be known for giving back, and so when we show up in these communities on race day, we leave something behind. This donation goes toward STEM and racing with the intention of sparking interest in the next generation of fans and maybe future engineers or future drivers who will be running the sport one day,” Sarcone says. “We’re excited to keep on building and showing up.” Agency: Deutsch.
Photos: Courtesy of Straight Talk Wireless
