From The Trades: Airlines Keeping Sports Marketing Budgets Flat
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American Airlines Expected To Keep
Sports Sponsorship Budget Flat In '09 |
DALLAS BUSINESS JOURNAL's Jeff Bounds notes despite enduring "some of the toughest economic sledding in decades," officials from American Airlines and Southwest Airlines said that they will "hold their sponsorship budgets flat in 2009, including for sports." IEG Sponsorship Report indicated that American Airlines spent between $45-50M in '07, the "last year for which it is providing estimates," while figures for Southwest Airlines were not available. Bounds notes "as is done every year, American and Southwest will tinker with their budgets, adding in some deals and removing others, though the net effect in both cases will be flat spending." American Airlines Advertising, Promotions & Corporate Communications Dir Billy Sanez added that his company is "pulling back on some sponsorships in local markets" (DALLAS BUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/20 issue). American Airlines has arena naming-right deals with arenas in Miami and Dallas, as well as sponsorship of the Lakers, Cowboys and MLB Cardinals, among others. Southwest Airlines has corporate deals with the NFL, NBA and WNBA, as well as more than 20 pro and college teams (THE DAILY).
WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND: AD AGE's Jeremy Mullman reports New Balance is "sharpening its media buying, restricting it to Wednesday through Saturday in order to capitalize on the lead-up to the weekend, when most consumers shop for shoes." The company is also "scaling back buys with broadcast outlets Fox and CBS in order to concentrate more media firepower on ESPN." New Balance Global Advertising Manager Norma Delaney: "We want to have a stronger voice on fewer platforms" (AD AGE, 3/23 issue).
BIG GAME BOOST: ADWEEK's Brian Morrissey notes "for the handful of advertisers who make money by getting people" to their Web sites, recently released Web traffic data "shows mixed results for advertisers looking at their numbers" in the weeks after NBC's Super Bowl XLIII broadcast. comScore indicated that Hulu "saw a 55[%] jump in traffic in February, going from 5 million to 7.8 million visitors." Hulu's weekly traffic "jumped nearly 100[%] after the game," but in the next two weeks the site "settled into traffic levels at 50[%] above pre-game weekly totals" (ADWEEK, 3/23 issue).
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