Daytona 500 sponsor TV exposure history

Matt Kenseth’s victory at last year’s rain-shortened Daytona 500 saw the driver lead only one lap under green, but the television time he earned for his primary sponsor DeWalt Tools ranked 8th all time for winning brands at the Great American Race.

According to research conducted by Joyce Julius & Associates, Inc. — which has monitored every NASCAR race telecast since the mid-1980s — the DeWalt logos carried by Kenseth and crew last February appeared clear and in-focus for a total of 12 minutes, 20 seconds (12:20) during the live Fox telecast of the 2009 Daytona 500, the most watched race of the year.

While impressive, the highly sought after camera time accumulated by Kenseth and DeWalt was actually surpassed on that day by Kyle Busch’s M&Ms (17:09), Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s AMP Energy (15:18) and Jeff Gordon’s DuPont (14:44).

Despite Kenseth’s limited time in the lead, the bulk of DeWalt’s exposure stemmed from hood identity, which accounted for 44.1% of the brand’s total exposure time. Not surprisingly, Kenseth benefited from the longest interview segments of the broadcast, lasting a cumulative 1:25. The logos on Kenseth’s uniform, monitored during the extended interview segments, generated 18.2% of DeWalt’s on-screen time.

Historically, Jimmie Johnson’s victory in 2006 set the standard for Daytona 500 sponsor exposure when Lowe’s was monitored by Joyce Julius and Associates for 27:30 during NBC’s telecast. Dale Earnhardt’s legendary lone Daytona 500 win in 1998 saw the logo of his main sponsor, GM Goodwrench, appear on the CBS telecast for 25:46. Meanwhile, Ryan Newman’s 2008 victory helped rank ALLTEL third on the all-time Daytona list with 17:38.

Daytona 500 Winning Sponsors Television Exposure