Ray wrote: For the life of me I don't know why Coke isn't a huge sponsor in F1. It's the globes most oft seen brand.
I spent 20 years in high tech marketing, much of it in branding-related activities, including (peripherally) Compaq's abortive engagement with F1. You can be sure Coke, eBay, Microsoft, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, etc have received and studied MANY proposals. It's a complicated question involving how many UNIQUE eyeballs per dollar, WHICH eyeballs, WHEN, etc. There are also questions about potential bad publicity from racing related deaths, the character of the players in F1, and exclusivity (Compaq hoped for an agreement making them the only PC manufacturer who could sponsor a team). The multitude of sponsors per team is also an issue. What if . . . one teams attempts to sign McDonald and Pepsi Cola (Frito-Lay) as co-sponsors. No Good: McDonalds sells Coca Cola products exclusively. Similarly Wal-Mart (family oriented) would not want "their" team to accept sponsorship from Viagra/sexually oriented products.
MORE important is the demographics of the audience. One example: several US magazines have folded in the last several years WHILE THEIR READERSHIP WAS AT ALL TIME HIGHS. Why? Advertisers were not interested in the demographic who read those particular magazines. Potential F1 sponsors would examine F1's audience very carefully. There has been a lot of talk about Bernie's audience figures being very inflated.
Possibly most important - I've already outlined above one thing that has limited mega-corp involvement: "Coke, eBay, Microsoft, McDonalds, Wal-Mart." They and many other companies with the resources to back F1 (Budweiser, Ford, GM, GE, Westinghouse, Boeing, etc) are USA-based. And F1 is a VERY small fish in the USA ocean. We need to look at non-US based multinationals for our best hope: Shell, Phillips, Nokia, etc, etc.
I'm several light years from being an expert on this point, but I hope the above helps a little.
Enzo Ferrari was a great man. But he was not a good man. -- Phil Hill
