PGA Tour partners Coca-Cola and MasterCard both earned record awareness levels among fans in ‘12, according to the results of an annual PGA Tour Sponsor Loyalty survey conducted by Turnkey. Coke was identified by 41% of PGA Tour fans as the official soft drink (46.5% among avid fans, 35.5% among casuals), marking the brand’s highest level since the first measurement of the property in ‘08. Coke's increase over ‘11 also was the biggest improvement among all the Tour’s sponsors. The brand's awareness level among golf fans makes it one of the most recognized soft drink relationships in sports. In similar annual studies of the NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, NFL and NASCAR, only NASCAR’s Coke deal has a higher recognition level in the soft drink category.
PRICELESS: MasterCard, coming in at 24%, generated its highest total among casual fans with its third straight year of increased recognition among all fans. Meanwhile, nearly 52% of fans correctly identified FedEx as a Tour sponsor. Among the other sports properties studied by Turnkey, only three partnerships have a higher awareness level within that particular sport’s fan base: NASCAR’s deals with Goodyear (67%) and with Coke (53%), and Gatorade’s deal with the NFL (57%).
IN THE ROUGH: Anheuser-Busch’s recognition level was flat compared with ‘11 and down 4.5 percentage points from the ‘08 survey. The beer maker garnered a 28% positive identification rate among all fans, lowest among its official partnerships in our other measured surveys. Among all PGA Tour fans, 53% responded “I’m not sure” when asked to name the official hotel, up 10 percentage points from ‘11.
| |
--- AVID FANS ---
|
--- CASUAL FANS ---
|
| SPONSOR (SINCE) |
'10
|
'11
|
'12
|
'10
|
'11
|
'12
|
| FedEx ('07) |
58.1%
|
62.6%
|
56.5%
|
44.2%
|
56.5%
|
46.5%
|
| Coca-Cola ('02) |
41.0%
|
37.9%
|
46.5%
|
28.6%
|
33.0%
|
35.5%
|
| Anheuser-Busch ('94) |
24.9%
|
28.3%
|
28.0%
|
25.1%
|
27.5%
|
27.5%
|
| Bridgestone ('06) |
--
|
--
|
33.5%
|
--
|
--
|
20.0%
|
| MasterCard ('95) |
27.3%
|
30.3%
|
29.0%
|
21.6%
|
20.5%
|
24.0%
|
| Charles Schwab ('97) |
--
|
--
|
28.5%
|
--
|
--
|
23.5%
|
| United ('10) |
8.8%
|
17.7%
|
19.0%
|
8.0%
|
15.5%
|
22.0%
|
| Aflac ('12) |
--
|
--
|
22.5%
|
--
|
--
|
16.5%
|
Travelers ('06)
|
15.6%
|
18.2%
|
18.0%
|
9.1%
|
12.5%
|
14.0%
|
| Ketel One ('05) |
--
|
--
|
14.5%
|
--
|
--
|
15.0%
|
| Holiday Inn/Crowne Plaza ('11) |
6.3%
|
9.1%
|
9.0%
|
4.5%
|
6.5%
|
6.0%
|
