• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, April 23, 2004

On April 16, the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees by four runs in Fenway Park, but financial services marketer Fleet beat automaker Ford by 225,939 impressions. Fleet dominated the sponsorship field in the park that day with in-stadium signage in the outfield, the dugout and by third base that were exposed 84 times for a total of seven minutes and 22 seconds on Fox's coverage of the game. That reached and estimated 418,487 persons 18-plus, according to the Nielsen Sponsorship Scorecard, a new service from Nielsen Sports, a new unit of Nielsen Media Research.

The service, which is designed to create TV advertising equivalencies of sports stadium signage, to help media planners measure the value of such buys relative to TV ads and other media, is the latest in a series of new products launched by Nielsen that are redefining and expanding the notion of screen-based advertising. In just the last year, Nielsen has introduced services that measure product placements on TV and TV-like ratings for ads in movie theaters, and also on video games.

The product also is the first to be developed by Nielsen Ventures, a new unit of the media research company that is headed by Senior Vice President-General Manager Ron Schneier, a former top cable industry sales executive.

While such sponsorships historically have not been measured and tracked with the same media research rigor as conventional advertising buys, they represent a huge business and the new service comes at a time when media shops are being asked to broaden their definition of the media mix to consider other communications options, such as sponsorships, event marketing, and even public relations - anything that constitutes a consumer "contact."

According to a report released Friday by Dublin, Ireland-based Research and Markets, the global sponsorship industry reached an all-time high of $26.2 billion in 2003, up 7.4 percent from $24.4 billion in 2002. "Behind its appeal sports sponsorship is a relationship-building tool that is not just concerned about brand awareness but engages with an audience on both rational and emotional levels," states the report.

Nielsen Sponsorship Scorecard: Red Sox Vs. Yankees (April 16)

Brand     Occurrences    Duration     Persons 18+ 
Fleet              84        7:22         418,487

Ford               37        3:25         192,548 
Volvo              45        2:24         137,017 
Bob's Stores       35        2:22         132,647 
McDonald's         11        1:39
88,279 

Source: Nielsen Sponsorship Scorecard.