Daytona a Super Bargain for advertisers

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Calling all advertisers who didn't get the message out on Super Bowl Sunday: NASCAR has a deal for you.

For about one-sixth the price of two weeks ago, sponsors can get 30 seconds of air time to introduce a new commercial, or maybe replay one that was a hit during America's biggest sports holiday.

NASCAR has long touted the Daytona 500 as the Super Bowl of racing. Buying into that hype, advertisers lined up and NBC sold out its commercial inventory. Even though the audience will only be about one-third of what it is for the Super Bowl -- 35 million are expected to watch -- a Daytona 500 ad can still have plenty of impact.

"It's the highest-rated sports program between the Super Bowl and the NCAA championship" basketball game, NBC Sports vice president Kevin Sullivan said. "The exposure is just phenomenal."

Thirty-second ads that went for an average of $2.3 million during the Super Bowl cost an average of about $350,000 for the Daytona 500. Advertisers got better deals if they committed to buying time during races later in the season, as well.

Among the most popular commercials during the Super Bowl was one in which Dale Earnhardt Jr. gets signaled via cell phone and drives his No. 8 car onto the field for a touchdown, bowling over football players haplessly trying to tackle the car. It will be shown again.

Nextel, the new title sponsor of NASCAR's top series, was responsible for the Earnhardt ad, and the cellular phone company also is planning a montage ad celebrating the tradition in NASCAR. It's something of a strange twist given that Nextel replaced R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. as the main sponsor of NASCAR's top series, the first change in more than three decades.

As was the case in the Super Bowl, the erectile dysfunction wars will play out in 30-second snippets -- Levitra, Viagra and Cialis will air ads similar to those they put on for the Super Bowl. Viagra is no stranger to NASCAR. Pfizer, the maker of the drug, been in the sponsorship game since 1999, most notably as a sponsor for Mark Martin's car.

Elsewhere, UPS will have its spokesman, Dale Jarrett, getting instructions on how to safely drive one of the big, brown trucks.

AOL, a new sponsor, will feature car owner Richard Childress in one of its ads.

Gilette and Toyota, which is now racing in NASCAR's truck series, are also among the new advertisers this year.

"That's obviously a significant sign, when we see new sponsors coming in," Sullivan said.

Unlike the Super Bowl, where overt advertising is kept to a minimum while the game is being played, NASCAR is a virtual full-time commercial.

The 43 cars, all painted over with dozens of sponsor logos and decals, are literally moving advertisements while the race is on. The actual 30-second commercials are, in many ways, superfluous, and unlike in the Super Bowl, nobody pitches the ads as must-see TV.

"We have great ads, but we also have great racing," NBC producer Sam Flood said. "The race is so exciting and dramatic, we don't need ads to supersede it."

Still, commercials have been a big part of the story of Daytona 500 telecasts, especially since 2001, the first year of the revolutionary $2.8 billion TV contract NASCAR signed with Fox and NBC. That year, Fox tried to push the envelope at the Daytona 500. It planned not to give full airing of sponsor logos for companies that didn't also buy advertising time during the race.

That turned out to be a grave mistake. Car owners, realizing exactly who pays the bills, complained to NASCAR. The sponsors did, too. By the time the race rolled around, things were back to normal. Fox was showing all the logos and apologizing for its miscalculation.

In the end, the network realized what NASCAR has known all along. The sport and its ads are virtually one in the same. In a recent survey conducted by Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal, NASCAR ranked first in almost every key category sponsors rate as important when they decide how to spend advertising dollars.

"That's been going on for several years," NASCAR CEO Brian France said. "It's been a goal for a lot of our sponsors, who activate their sponsorship at the Daytona to make a big splash in a big event. It's flattering."