Guaranteed Rate extends bowl game sponsorship (Score 76)

Guaranteed Rate (GR) extended its title partnership with the Fiesta Bowl Organization for four more years. This will allow the company to continue hosting the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, which is played between a Big Ten and a Big 12 team at Chase Field in Phoenix, AZ. As the bowl game's official financial partner, GR will receive in-stadium exposure and on-site activation. The partnership will also include digital and social media content. No financial details have been made public. We told you about GR's new chief marketing & digital officer, Sanjay Gupta, in March. 

According to Pathmatics, GR earned 20.5m impressions YTD through desktop display ads (82%), mobile display ads (9%) and Instagram ads (8%). It placed the majority (72%) of these ads directly onto sites such as nhl.com, instagram.com, whatculture.com, refdesk.com and wtop.com. It placed the remainder (28%) indirectly through Google AdX+AdSense and The Trade Desk onto sites such as nhl.com, realtor.com, coldwellbanker.com, weather.com and newatlas.com. It spent about $107.4k on digital display ads YTD, just 11% of the $1m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2021. Full-year spend decreased by 42% from $5.2m in 2020 to $3m in 2021. 

Per iSpot, GR spent around $342.6k on national TV ads YTD, a massive decrease from $18.4m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2021. Full-year spend skyrocketed from $131k in 2020 to $28.2m in 2021. This year, it placed ads during programming such as Figure Skating, NHL Hockey, Skiing and Freestyle Skiing. 

Sellers-- GP appears to be targeting Gen-Xers and millennials. It focuses the majority of its marketing budget on national TV and digital display ads. It has been reducing digital spend for the last couple of years. The company significantly increased TV spend in 2021, but YTD spend is considerably lower than the amount it spent during the same time frame of 2021. Keep in mind, Gupta has not had much time to implement his own strategy, so that may explain the inconsistent spend data. I still believe he will increase spend in the next couple of months. Sellers should reach out to offer ad space. 

Agency & martech readers-- Keep reaching out to pitch your services to the new CMO. To the best of my knowledge, GR is not currently working with any agency partners, so you should not have to compete with an incumbent shop.