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Athens, GA (Mar 5, 2009) - Nielsen Research has an interesting spin on some TV sports ad spending by major banks in 2007 and 2008.

“In today’s market, the banking industry is wise to target its ads to sports audiences,” said Tom Ziangas, SVP for Nielsen Sports (pictured left). “Not only do live sports provide a more engaged audience that is less likely to skip commercials, but also our data shows that sports were viewed more than any other genre in households with incomes over $125,000.”

So what were the numbers?

BANK	2007 SPORTS TV $$$	2008 SPORTS TV $$$	% CHANGE
BANK OF AMERICA CORP	$21,138,201	$43,858,273	107%
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND GROUP PLC	$4,613,751	$11,272,773	144%
CHARLES SCHWAB CORP	$3,279,248	$8,165,118	149%
JPMORGAN CHASE & CO	$9,926,713	$8,086,165	-19%
WELLS FARGO & CO	$12,741,595	$7,873,821	-38%
TOTAL BANKS	$90,097,831	$122,328,819	36%
source: The Nielsen Company 2009

And ask yourself a simple question. If a household has over $125,000 in income, don't you think they are pretty well settled with their bank? Does the advertising really make that much of a difference? Or does it just provide a "warm fuzzy" for existing customers?

So take the Nielsen spin with a grain of salt. Sponsorships are dropping like flies, and ad spending has to go down in 2009. And the outlook for these banks is far less than rosy according to this new published by Bloomberg this morning:

JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp., the three largest U.S. banks by market value, may face credit-rating downgrades by Moody’s Investors Service amid signs they’ll set aside additional cash for loan losses.

JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by market value, had its ratings outlook cut by Moody’s to negative from stable. Moody’s said it will review the long-term debt ratings of Wells Fargo, the second-largest U.S. bank, and Bank of America, ranked third, on concern that higher credit costs may damage capital ratios.

...

JPMorgan’s profit fell 76 percent in the fourth quarter as rising defaults and the U.S. recession forced the bank to write down $2.9 billion of assets and boost reserves for bad loans. The bank’s market value of $72.5 billion is more than Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup Inc. combined. New York-based Citigroup is the fourth-largest U.S. bank by market value.

Read the full Bloomberg article here.

Related Link(s)

Sports TV Right On The Money For Bank Advertisers (Nielsen Research)
JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank America Face Ratings Cuts (Bloomberg)