Gordon, Stewart scoring big for their NASCAR sponsors

Former Indiana resident Jeff Gordon, who earlier this season snapped a 66-race winless streak, has generated more on-screen time for his sponsors during television coverage of the first three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events this season than any other driver, while overall team sponsor exposure declined 25 percent compared to the same point in the season a year ago.

Gordon is represented by Zionsville-based Just Marketing International.

According to research conducted by Joyce Julius & Associates, Inc.—which has monitored every NASCAR race telecast over the last 27 seasons—Gordon’s sponsors have appeared for one hour, 50 minutes, 16 seconds during live and replayed telecasts of the Daytona, Phoenix and Las Vegas races.
 
When factoring in verbal mentions of Gordon’s sponsors, the veteran driver has helped amass nearly $7.6 million of in-broadcast exposure value, according to Joyce Julius analysis.

Las Vegas winner Carl Edwards ranks second in brand on-camera time with 1:47:28, along with a driver-high 34 sponsor mentions, for a three-race total of $7.1 million.

Hoosier Tony Stewart is third with 1:41:25 exposure for his sponsors, with eight verbal mentions. There are a couple of interesting side notes about Stewart. He has only given two post-race TV interviews totaling 42 seconds for the first three races. Compared to four for Gordon totaling 5:35 and seven for Edwards totaling 8:01.

But Stewart is mentioned 436 times during interviews given by other drivers, more than Edwards’ 362 and second to Gordon’s 453.

Rounding out the top eight in exposure are Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Trevor Bayne, Juan Pablo Montoya and Jimmie Johnson.

Joyce Julius calculates television exposure value by comparing the in-broadcast visual and verbal exposure to the estimated cost of a national commercial during the telecast and applying Joyce Julius Recognition Grading, which takes into account such factors as size and placement of the image on screen, as well as brand clutter and integration of the brand into the activity.

While Gordon and Edwards have enjoyed early season success, overall in-broadcast exposure statistics for primary team sponsors in the series are down from a year ago. On average, per hour cumulative exposure time accumulated by team sponsors fell from 1:05:43 at the same point a year ago to 49:06 this season.

“This is a very small sample set, and the second race was held at a different track this year, so these results could swing over the next few races,” said Eric Wright, Joyce Julius vice president of research and product development. “But we are also seeing a 47 percent decline in average verbal mentions for the team sponsors and a 22 percent decrease in hood exposure. These are two leading indicators and they are down right now.”