Sports fans can be just about the most fervently loyalty group of people around. Through the exhilarating thrill of victory to the heartbreaking distress of defeat, many sports fans will stand by their team with a devotion that can rocket past simple customer loyalty and enter the realm of true evangelism. Sports loyalty is a special kind of customer loyalty that offers a sense of identity and community, often a very large community, which can be of great interest to marketers hoping to attract the biggest number eyes and ears possible.
In the quest for customer loyalty, a brand attaching itself to a sports organization, or the reciprocal nature of an athletic endorsement, is nothing new. However, new research suggests that companies seeking to build greater brand loyalty may want to reconsider just where they are placing those marketing dollars, especially if they have been overlooking the tremendously lucrative world of NASCAR.
SponsorLink has just released a study by Repucom, a leading source of sports and entertainment research, found that NASCAR fans maintain the greatest customer loyalty to the brands that sponsor their favorite racecars and drivers. These results came after Repucom surveyed a comprehensive sample of sports fans from among every American sporting category. The research firm found that brand loyalty among NASCAR fans is almost 20% greater than fans of other sports. On average, seven out of ten race fans said that they back the brand that backs their sport.
“Repucom’s advanced measurement tools are central to our sponsorship platforms and help us demonstrate significant return to partners,” said Patrick Perkins, VP of Marketing for Hendrick Motorsports, the 11-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series winner. “Clear and reliable insights remain critical to developing impactful programs and engaging with our passionate, brand-loyal fans. The information we have access to through our relationship with Repucom is a major part of that.”
To conduct this research, Repucom relies on advanced data analysis to study over 350 hours of NASCAR racing. In addition to assessing over 1,000 brands in the NASCAR Sprint Cup, XFINITY, and Camping World Truck series, Repucom also considered race schedules, teams, audience sizes, digital and terrestrial broadcasts, social media, channels, and a host of other factors.
“NASCAR’s top teams, sponsor brands, tracks and broadcasters depend on Repucom as an independent voice for measuring the value of media exposure and sharing best practices,” said Repucom Exceutive VP Peter Laatz. “We help our clients maximize their commercial partnerships by providing the reliable data, insights and intelligence they need to make informed sponsorship decisions.”
And these are incredibly valuable sponsorships at that. Repucom also calculated that sponsors earned a media exposure value of about $1.3 billion by appearing in NASCAR’s three top national race series.