America's Cup Created A Huge Amount Of Visibility For Oracle

Oracle received a huge amount of free publicity from the boat it sponsored for the America’s Cup (if you don’t count the approximately $300 million that Larry Ellison is reported to have personally spent sponsoring it).

Oracle doesn’t advertise to consumers and in its 2011. 2012 and 2013 fiscal years the company spent $85 million, $79 million and $88 million respectively on advertising. This is a drop in the bucket (no pun intended) for Oracle since it only represents 0.2% of its fiscal 2013 $37.2 billion revenue. As a point of comparison IBM has spent a bit over $1.3 billion per year in advertising or 1.3% of its revenue the past three years and it doesn’t have any consumer business products.

References to Oracle spiked during the America’s Cup

Kontera measures “consumption” on the Internet by analyzing and cross-coorelating 450 million page views, 1.4 billion tweets and huge amounts of videos, phrases and images to determine what is being seen by users. It ran some analysis from July 1 to September 24 (the day before the final race) to determine if there was an impact on Oracle being “consumed” or viewed on the Internet. This chart shows what verticals had the most "consumption" with Tech and Computing at 29% with Sports at 22%.

Source: Kontera.com

Kontera measured a huge increase in the number of references to Oracle that occurred during the finals. When it compared the August 26 to September 8 (the second day of the finals) timeframe vs. the September 9 to 22 (three days before the final race) Kontera found a 1,710% increase in Oracle "consumption".

There was also a tremendous shift from Oracle’s Tech and Computing segment having the highest share of "consumption" at 29% from July 1 to September 24 to Oracle Sports having the highest share at 44% from August 26 to September 24.  The Oracle Sports share doubled from 22% in the July 1 to September 24 timframe.

Source: Kontera.com

It is essentially impossible to determine how valuable the pictures of the Team Oracle boat delivered as it came back from an 8 to 1 deficit and won 8 races in a row to retain the America’s Cup. However, with the continuous exposure and historic victory it made impressions on television and the Internet.

Easy decision for Ellison, watch the America’s Cup or give another keynote

The America’s Cup was taking place during Oracle World which forced Ellison to choose from delivering his keynote address or watch one of the last races. Maybe I’m too much of a sports fan but I agree with his decision.

How many times does one get a chance to see one of the premier sporting events that only occurs about every three years, even if you haven’t spent millions of dollars, vs. hearing another keynote that you won’t remember anyway (well maybe you’ll remember two or three tidbits from Larry).

I’ve been following the America’s Cup and Daniel Fisher from Forbes wrote a very good article on Ellison’s involvement with it. In it he writes about Ellison’s passion for sailing and the amount of money it is rumored he has spent on the America’s Cup.

Forbes estimates that Ellison is worth $41 billion and it is rumored that he has spent $300 million to win the America’s Cup. To put this in perspective that is 0.73% of his wealth. That is the equivalent of someone who has $100,000 spending $730 on a gift for himself.

Follow me on Twitter @sandhillinsight. Find my other Forbes posts here.