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In September, we provided the pre-season look of whose site visitors had the greatest overlap with NFL content on ESPN and Yahoo Sports. As the NFL season has hit its mid-way point, Compete looked at the overlap again averaging September and October data.

What was not surprising is that the top-10 overlap on average was greater since the season started. The September/ October top-10 average was almost 3 times greater than the July average (not shown). Similar to the July results, was that the majority of the sites in the top-10 were luxury sites except for GMC.

GMC was ranked 10th in the set as it is in its second year of sponsoring Monday Night Football. Toyota (#15) and Volkswagen (#17) are non-luxury makes that also have some level of sponsorship with NFL programming, but not as in-depth or consistent as GMC’s NFL sponsorship.

For instance, Toyota splits its time with Lexus on halftime and pre-game shows while VW sponsors a small part of the Monday Night Football programming, “Teams at 20” report. Further analysis, such as brand engagement and how search might play a role in these results might provide a deeper understanding of GMC’s success to date.

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IS STRONG SATURN DEMAND TRANSLATING INTO SALES?
By: Dennis Bulgarelli

Since 2006, Saturn has launched four new models – Sky, Aura, Outlook and VUE – with the new Astra available in January 2008. Compete analyzed Saturn’s performance by looking at the impact these products have had in the market place, specifically the three newest models and the consumer demand they have generated.

Since May 2007 Saturn demand has more than doubled. October demand of over 225,000 shoppers put Saturn at 10% share of all market shoppers, ahead of Dodge and approaching Nissan. That growth can be attributed to consistent improvements in Aura, Outlook and VUE. Demand for all three has grown since May, each improving to all-time highs in October.

However, while Saturn demand has responded to new product launches, sales have not. Outlook and Aura sales peaked in Spring and Summer, coincident with higher incentives while VUE sales have yet to reach pre-launch levels. Sales of all three have declined while inventories have been robust according to Wards.

The year-end Red Tag sales event is designed to spur sales with attractive deals on the remaining ’07’s and new ‘08’s. If successful, strong Saturn demand will be converted into sales, at which time Saturn will be able to measure its success not only in terms of generating demand but also by turning that demand into sales.