Maximum exposure

Ballparks have them.

You can't miss them on race cars.

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And that last food festival you went to was plastered with them.

Even the uniforms of the local softball team have them.

North American companies are spending billions of dollars each year putting their logos where consumers will see them.

These companies want to be associated with the types of events and sports that consumers care about while sidestepping the holes in advertising caused by technology and cultural changes.

Experts agree that it's getting harder to get results from some traditional advertising media.

There are just too many channels. TiVo enables TV viewers to skip commercials. Music listeners can subscribe to commercial-free satellite radio. And the growing number of cable channels means advertisers' exposure is splintered. In many ways, it's getting easier for consumers to skip that 30-second spot.

Sponsorship marketing hasn't surpassed traditional advertising, but some companies are getting more creative with sponsorship packages.

Chris Contino, vice president of marketing for Culver's, said when he joined the Prairie du Sac fast-food company two years ago, sponsorship was not a big factor. Since then, the company has greatly increased its focus on that type of marketing.

"We do it because the traditional media is becoming so fragmented that there has got to be a different way to reach our potential guests," Contino said.

William Chipps, senior editor of IEG Sponsorship Report, published biweekly by IEG in Chicago, agrees with Contino's assessment.

"Basically, you can't just buy a blanket advertisement with a network and expect to reach a lot of people," Chipps said.

There are several benefits to using sponsorship as a marketing device, said Michelle Nelson, an assistant journalism professor at UW-Madison and an expert in consumer psychology.

"If you're in the Camp Randall football stadium, you've got a captive audience. People cannot TiVo past your message," Nelson said.

But it's not just about reaching the consumer; it's about how those consumers get the message, she said. "Typically (those fans are) feeling good ... so some of the psychological (thinking) is that feel-good rubs off on the message."

"It's not Lands' End, the international corporation. It's Lands' End that is supporting my Little League team or my Badger team," Nelson said.

But Nelson noted that these deals aren't a slam-dunk. The partnership needs to make sense to the consumer. This can happen either through a local company sponsor or a product that is congruent with the event or team, Nelson said.

"Does it make sense if Coca-Cola sponsors the Badgers? Yes. Does it make sense if Est?e Lauder sponsors the Badgers? Not really," she said.

"Consumers don't want to think you're supporting it to manipulate them. Those long-running sponsorships are the ones people remember and they feel like the company's not doing it to try to get us. They're doing it because they care."

In 2000, Alliant Energy paid $6.3 million for the naming rights of the former Dane County Exposition Center.

Miller Brewing paid more than $40 million to name Milwaukee's baseball stadium Miller Park.

According to IEG, these deals are just a small part of the sponsorship picture. The report projects that North American companies will spend about $12.1 billion on sponsorship deals this year. That's up 8.8 percent from $11.1 billion in 2004.

The majority of sponsorship dollars, 69 percent, go toward sports, and IEG acknowledges that professional sports properties seem to be "near the sponsorship saturation point." However, teams "continue to find ways to carve out new programs and platforms ? such as branded experiential areas and arenas ? and to be successful at selling them."

Sponsoring sports, whether it's the Badger hockey team or the local youth soccer program, is a natural fit for Culver's, Contino said. "Sports is probably a common denominator among a lot of people," he said. And it's not just the number of sports fans that see the Culver's logo; it's the way they shop.

"Fans of certain sports are very brand loyal," he said. That brand loyalty, particularly in NASCAR racing, has reinforced Culver's belief in sponsorship, Contino said.

And while Culver's does get its logo out to the big names ? the company spends $500,000 a year with the Chicago Cubs and is a major sponsor for several UW sports ? Contino said the company puts even more emphasis on sponsoring local youth sports and events.

"Getting yourself out in front of the community is probably the No. 1 thing that we work at," he said. "They begin to understand that we want to be part of the community."

But Contino acknowledges that it's getting people into the restaurant that counts. "Ultimately, sales is what we're after," he said.

Many companies maintain that marketing and name recognition are not the motivating factors in corporate support; it's the investment in the community.

Alliant Energy spokesman Scott Smith acknowledged that name recognition comes with the company's many sponsorship deals, which range from building names to the Ironman Wisconsin triathlon.

The main reason the company has spent millions on sponsorships is community involvement, he said. "Our participation in sponsorships is really to enhance the vitality of our communities," he said. "We have a determined service territory. We aren't going to be getting new customers (from sponsorships)."

M&I Bank is another visible sponsor in the Madison market, and Muriel Howells, the company's assistant vice president of community relations, also says the main motivation is giving back to the community. The company spends a "significant amount" on United Way, Rhythm and Booms and the Ronald McDonald Golf Classic. The company also sponsors a scoreboard at Camp Randall Stadium.

"We have to give back to our communities," Howells said. "We try to focus on those (events and causes) that have the biggest impact."

But she admits that sponsorships such as those involving Badger sports can benefit the bottom line.

"The more people that hear and see M&I Bank, they're hopefully going to bring their business to M&I Bank," she said.

While the benefits of sponsorship may seem obvious for the sponsor, measuring its effectiveness can be a challenge.

"With traditional media, you basically measure cost per thousand. That's pretty easy for a company to do," said Chipps of IEG. "With sponsorship, it's a little bit more labor intensive. You never really know (how many people you're reaching). A smart sponsor will run these ancillary promotions, but the payoff should be greater."

Contino said giveaways are one method Culver's uses to measure how many people are reached through sponsorships.

But the real value is not in the number of people you reach, it's more in the intangible results, Chipps said. "If (a company is) looking for brand awareness, maybe traditional media would be a way to go," Chipps said. "If they're looking to get a bigger bang for your buck, maybe sponsorship would be a better way to go."

One organization benefiting from corporate sponsorships is the Madison Mallards. The amateur baseball team has proven to be a surprise success in a market that has seen several minor league baseball teams come and go.

One reason for that success, team representatives say, is its many sponsors. "It's the basis of the franchise," said General Manager Vern Stenman. "From year one, it made the operation stronger. ... We had to really rely on the corporate support to get where we are."

Stenman said it wasn't just the financial backing that helped the team get started. He believes a sponsorship deal with American Family Insurance that first year also brought legitimacy to the team and proved to the community it wasn't a "fly-by-night operation."

The team, which plays in the Northwoods League, has about 100 sponsors, 15 to 20 of which Stenman called major sponsors. The Great Dane Pub & Brewing Co. sponsors the Duck Blind and Budweiser sponsors the Solid Rock Rooftop. Quench Gum is featured in the Mallards' radio ads. The team has sponsors for a variety of theme nights and giveaways.

Stenman wouldn't say how much the team makes from sponsorships but said it accounts for about 25 percent of total revenue.

Tom Wistrcill, general manager of Badger Sports Properties, which manages sponsorship deals for the UW Athletic Department, said sponsorships allow the university to provide more than they would in a typical advertising deal.

"You're buying an affinity with the Badgers here while also getting a good return on your investment," he said. As a seller of sponsorships, "you can provide a wide mix of things; it's not purely an advertising buy."

Wistrcill said sponsorship costs for UW sports teams can range from $1,500 for inclusion in a game program to "well over six figures" for a package that includes things like signage, media advertising, print advertising, game sponsorships, pre-game and half-time promotions, game-day events and hospitality receptions.

"The people that we have that are truly successful are the ones that buy some of (each thing)," he said. "Not everybody has huge budgets for this," he said. "We're not a fit for everybody."

Potential sponsors come to see Keith Peterson with a variety of goals in mind, said the events manager for Madison Festivals Inc. The company manages such events as the Mad City Marathon and the Taste of Madison.

Those goals include being good community members, looking for exposure and name recognition and wanting to drive customers into their business as a direct result of an event. In one case, Peterson said a beer producer used a sponsorship deal to survey consumers on the company's product.

Title sponsors get the most wide-ranging package. For Taste of Madison, the cost is about $50,000, depending on the package, Peterson said. In return, sponsors get the equivalent of $250,000 worth of publicity from the event's media partners.

"Everything we do will put your name before the event. ... It becomes your event basically," he said.

Even with that type of exposure, Chipps said sponsorships will always take a back seat to conventional ads. "Traditional advertising is just too easy ... it still provides exposure," he said.

Still, sponsorships continue to gain ground. "Since we started tracking (sponsorship spending), it's always gone up," Chipps said. "We expect it to continue to increase as traditional media becomes increasingly fragmented. ...

"If a company wants that one-on-one interaction, sponsorship is a good marketing platform," he said.