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NEWS ANNOUNCEMENTYabutz Conducts NASCAR Internet StudyThe No. 25 NASCAR Nationwide Series Team ExperimentBoston, Massachusetts, November 7, 2008 — Bobby Hamilton, Jr. has secured sponsorship for Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide series event at Phoenix International Raceway. Well, sort of. Yabutz.com, a search engine for the motorsports racing industry, will run on Hamilton's No. 25 Ford Fusion to conduct a survey that seeks to measure Internet response relative to team sponsorship.Yabutz involvement with the No. 25 team is to study the Internet's impact on a "weekend" sponsorship of a race team. With fewer companies committing to season-long sponsorships, more targeted, "one-off" sponsorships may be the norm in the near term. The results of the study, due to be published next month, may help race teams and sponsors to create specific Internet programs tied directly to team sponsorship. With Internet marketing growing faster than any other advertising medium, Yabutz seeks to ascertain the correlation, if any, between television exposure of a sponsor's brand and fans' Internet response. According to Andrew Kaplan, Yabutz' outside marketing, "We'll log response by the minute and by region within a 72 hour "snapshot" — from practice and qualifying to race day. Yabutz doesn't sell a product, therefore, its brand is neutral not associated with a product or category, and will serve as the study's "control". Moreover, race fans are not Yabutz' audience but we're hoping fans are curious and will react — their response numbers will help validate the study." Kaplan added, "The object of the study, the first to our knowledge, is to measure "timeline" exposure. We're not interested in brand response or even response percentages relative to a broadcasters' viewer rating — in this case, SPEEDTV and ESPN. Our focus is when was the racecar image seen and when did someone respond to the image. Although the study centers on a NASCAR event, the study's findings will have wide reaching implications for all racing segments." The economy it's said has a direct affect on motorsports, in all areas, and with 90 percent of racers not being sponsored or woefully under sponsored, studies like this can be useful to teams large or small, regardless of series. Even the "racing" print media and their respective web offerings are feeling the economy's effect, and they too must adjust and adapt to these new business realities. About Yabutz Yabutz provides professional and amateur motorsports drivers, teams and parts-procurement staff within the racing industry a search engine for racing parts, equipment, tools and education. Yabutz is dedicated exclusively to worldwide motorsports racing, its competitors and suppliers, regardless of vehicle type — two wheels or four and is free to all users and suppliers. Media Contact: Yabutz Communications yabutz.com. [About Yabutz] [Press Center] |