Marketers supporting the New York Marathon are elbowing for space almost as fervently as the 37,000 or so runners that annually crowd the starting point at the Staten Island section of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
The race has 29 sponsors in total, accounting for a 10 percent increase in sponsorship revenue, according to Ann Hinegardner, chief marketing officer of the New York Road Runners. Title sponsor ING has renewed its original deal, which will now run through 2007. As a result of ING’s support, the women’s winner will get $130,000, which race officials say is the largest first-place purse in the history of marathon racing.
New marathon sponsors include Coors Light, which signed a three-year sponsorship and replaces Saranac in the beer category. Coors Light will promote their brew with 400 on-premise promotions in New York City and will leverage with branded tap handles and commemorative cans.
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| New race sponsor Coors Light will go big in the Big Apple with 400 on-site promotions. |
Another new sponsor of note, since it is an unusual category trying out its first sports sponsorship, is Duane Reade, one of many mass merchants posing as a drug store. It will use the race to push its 250 locations in New York City, activate with 300,000 Marathon Guides featuring coupons and promote its “Marathon of Savings’’ sale in 3.2 million store circulars. “I’m happy because it’s a new sponsor in a new category, but also because I’ve been pitching them for four years,” Hinegardner said with a laugh.
Henkel, better known for its Swiss Army knives, is leveraging one of its lesser known products, its Duck Tape brand of, er, duct tape. Other sponsor activation includes footwear/apparel sponsor Asics having a 19,000-square-foot store at the Jacob Javits Convention Center; Best Buy, teaming with Road Runner high-speed online service, to provide real-time race results in and around the finish line via PDAs; Tylenol running outdoor ads and offering sampling on course; Nickelodeon offering a Sponge Bob Square Pants workout equipment shirt in the Asics store and “sponge stations’’ along the course; and the apple growers consortium, New York Apple, with more than 70 spots on WNBC-TV, using Marathon footage.
FROZEN OUT? Coke has been an NHL sponsor since 1989 and its Powerade sports drink has been a partner since 1997. However, at a recent discussion in New York about the return of the NHL, John Cordova, Coke’s director of sports transaction management, sounded less than enthusiastic about being the official isotonic beverage of the NHL. Keep in mind that the deal expires after this season, so this could be construed as a bit of public negotiating. Nonetheless, Cordova said, “We had our best year ever for Powerade [last year] during a season where we didn’t have the NHL playing. So while we’re eager to see how the relaunch goes, we are questioning the value of the [NHL] association.” Stay tuned to see if Powerade stays on NHL ice.
NFL EXEC MOVES ON: Perry Cooper, the NFL’s director of database marketing, is leaving the league after more than six years to become senior director of database marketing at Time Warner Cable in Stamford, Conn., where he will direct database efforts for TWC’s base of 12 million subscribers.n
Terry Lefton can be reached at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
