This year's Daytona 500, the biggest event on the NASCAR racing circuit, amounted to two different competitions for Toyota. The automotive company hoped one of its cars would win the race. But it was equally determined to lead the social-media conversation surrounding the event.
To achieve that second objective, Toyota took advantage of a paid-for Twitter positioning and the latest research on what's effective on the platform. And that meant combining the virtual with the physical in a social-media effort that included perhaps the oldest marketing gambit around: Offering...