Watching the Great American Race yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice that Ask.com has tuned into NASCAR in a big way. Sure enough, it turns out that Ask.com has signed a big deal with NASCAR:
Ask.com, a leading search engine and an operating business of IAC, announced Wednesday it has entered into partnerships with NASCAR, NASCAR.COM and Hall of Fame Racing. Under the terms of the partnership with NASCAR, Ask becomes the Official Search Engine of NASCAR, with category exclusivity and a broad set of promotional rights in order to reach the sport’s estimated 75 million loyal fans.
In addition to the on-screen advertising, Ask.com is sponsoring Bobby Labonte in the 96 car (for 18 of the first 21 races), has created a NASCAR toolbar, and has created a new NASCAR homepage. I think the idea of an “official search engine” is pretty solid, even if it sounds a bit hokey. This move won’t put Google out of business, but Ask should pick up some incremental search traffic from NASCAR fans during the year.
For an idea of how valuable this kind of exposure can be, see my previous article on NASCAR sponsorship exposure value.
I wish Yahoo! had taken this opportunity a couple years ago when we were involved in NASCAR (Yahoo! sponsored Tina Gordon in her Busch series car). Unfortunately, I don’t think the value was there for Yahoo!, especially considering that Gordon didn’t qualify for many races and didn’t spend much time running up front.
Here’s a screenshot of Ask.com taken in the middle of the Daytona 500 yesterday:
what is the orange line on the car tires for?
Darrell,
What does Kurt Busch have to hide from the fans that he wants the fans not to hear on his radio? I saw on my alerts that he no longer wants the fans to be able to listen in on the radios. To me that is part of being involved in watching live racing, so I think he must be attempting to hide something. Radios have been a part of racing longer than he has been, leave the radios alone. If he doesn't want to be heard on the radio then don't give him one!
Is there a new nascar track being put up in south Ga.
Why are to 2 Ls in Talladega hi-lighted in black?
why can`t the drivers be true competiters and race in the rain. even if they have to change tires or slow down i would like to see a race finish under any condition.
The people that make Gibson guitars should never give a guitar to another winning driver after what dumbass did yesterday. Unforgivable."my opinion."
I appreciate good business, but with today's economic issues, I am sure a good number of we fans are not happy with TNT exclusive race coverages! Unless we pay $99/mth for cable or satelite tv reception, we cannot watch the races that TNT contracted to broadcast! But when FOX, ESPN, or ABC broadcasts races, we ALL can see them! Most times in the past, ABC also showed the ESPN coverage, which I hope will happen again this year. NASCAR GET US FANS SOME HELP HERE! We all would like to watch the races, instead of reverting to the 40 year old PRN radio broadcasts for the race coverage, when it is not on local television.