Multi-platform sports ad spending doesn’t add up to much in terms of a percentage of overall dollars but that’s changing, buyers, advertisers and network execs told me as I worked on a package for the Sports Business Journal’s annual upfront report.
One example: Five years ago, spending on digital wasn’t even a blip for major advertiser Anheuser-Busch. Three years ago, it was in the single digit millions. This year, it’s triple that amount but still incredibly small compared to the $220 million A-B spent on national sports television alone last year. Tony Ponturo, A-B’s VP of global media and sports marketing, says the amount will only grow. Meanwhile, he’s experimenting on ways to take advantage of the various platforms. A-B turned the days after the Super Bowl into an online “fifth quarter” by placing its attention-getting ads across multiple portals and its own sites, drawing 22 million views and 300,000 downloads. Last month, Ponturo’s group tried its first video webcast, hiring announcers and producing three days of live streaming coverage from the LPGA Michelob Ultra Open held at one of its resorts, then making it available on demand. “You get in the game, you experiment,” says Ponturo. Where is the money coming from? For some advertisers, it’s incremental but that’s not the way Ponturo explained it. “You’re redesigning your plan and it may be a little bit from each; don’t think it’s just TV—it could be a little less print, a little less outdoor. It’s not yet dramatic dollars … but five years from now it could have a different dimension.”
The package is behind a subscription wall but SBJ kindly has provided some links for us:
-- Plugging into a multiplatform marketplace
-- ESPN rolls out more options for advertisers, with most sales containing multiple media
-- Anheuser-Busch looks beyond percentages when making decisions on ad platforms
One interesting side note: Nearly everyone I interviewed matter-of-factly mentioned podcasting—audio and/or video—as an ad vehicle.