United Parcel Service’s sponsorship of Big Brown’s bid for the Triple Crown produced more than $6 million in overall exposure value, according to the Michigan-based sponsorship research company Joyce Julius & Associates.
Big Brown, owned by IEAH Stables and Paul Pompa Jr., won the May 3 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) and May 17 Preakness Stakes (gr. I), but lost in the June 7 Belmont Stakes (gr. I) and failed to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.
The research company, which released its findings June 9, reported that UPS garnered about $4 million of exposure value as a result of Big Brown’s wins at the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. UPS collected another $1.97 million of exposure value from the combination of ABC’s live telecast of the Belmont June 7, along with print and Internet news articles referencing the sponsor over a three-week period.
During the two-hour Belmont telecast, the UPS brand appeared for a total of two minutes, 29 seconds. A logo on the undershirt of Big Brown's jockey, Kent Desormeaux, was monitored for 50 seconds during a pre-race interview and proved to be the most productive source of television exposure for the sponsor, the research showed.
When comparing the in-broadcast exposure to the estimated cost of a commercial spot during the telecast, UPS reaped $1,365,835 of in-broadcast exposure value, the company said.
News articles referencing the UPS sponsorship also led to significant exposure, the company said. From the conclusion of the Preakness through June 8, more than 125 print and 400 Internet articles contributed another $606,250 of exposure value for UPS when comparing the results to traditional advertising.