Measuring the advertising efficiency of the top US sports advertisers

This study uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to analyze the advertising efficiency of 26 companies featured in Sports Business Journal's list of the top 50 sports advertisers from 2009. The input variables included sports media spending and non-sports media spending, as well as the total amount of money each company spent in each of the following media: magazines, national spot radio, network television, cable television, and spot television. The output variables were gross profits and brand value. The results showed that half of all the analyzed companies were operating inefficiently and needed to reduce advertising expenditures by an average of 20% while maintaining their current output levels in order to become efficient. The researchers also include a call for further research in this area.