Hoop It Up for Gains: The Coca-Cola Company (KO), Time Warner Inc (TWX), General Motors Company (GM)

Although more brand exposure is generally considered a benefit to advertisers, it’s quite difficult to determine firms’ ROI from March Madness marketing. I crunched some numbers and discovered how the above trio achieved shares gains during March Madness in each of the last two years. Keep in mind that a plethora of additional variables likely impacted the price changes, such as market sentiment, unrelated news, etc. Also, two years does not a trend make, but considering the landmark changes to tourney coverage in 2011 I chose not to dig into prior years.

Perhaps including the cogent data for CBS and Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) adds credence to a belief in an inherent benefit to companies involved with March Madness.

Any way you slice it, March Madness is a major force in American media. Whether huge companies such as CBS, Time Warner, General Motors Company (NYSE:GM), The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) and Capital One Financial receive an actionable boost from their tourney play is up for debate, yet I can’t see any negatives from such play.

The article Hoop It Up for Gains originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Chad Heiges.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.