NASCAR perfect vehicle for Allstate to deliver message (cont'd)

"We measure brand consideration and awareness and all of the lead generation. Some things work and some things don't. We continue to think of ways to tweak some of the promotions that we do. We've had tremendous success in the promotions we do on-site, at-track. The things we did at-track on July 29, in and around the Allstate 400 were phenomenal, phenomenal.

Grand time

A 20-year Allstate customer, James Denton has been a life-long racing fan. But the actor had never been to a NASCAR event, until now.

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"We have a harder time doing some of the national consumer promotions whether it's online, things like that. We're trying to figure out what works best for a company like Allstate in that area. We measure the utility of all of our advertising against what we call our brand health measures. There's still a lot of analytics behind insurance; and there's still a lot of analytics behind how we measure all of our sports spending."

New this year to Allstate's lineup at Indianapolis was the interactive Allstate Zone, a mobile display that combined the company's quest for auto safety with NASCAR's.

Besides seat belts and air bags and other safety aspects of Allstate's programs, there was a section of the display dedicated to NASCAR fans and their passion for motorcycles and RVs.

"We know NASCAR fans tend to over-index in owning motorcycles or RVs or both," Hollander said, slipping into insurance lingo. Over-index, in this case, means going in, whole-hog.

"It's been a very positive relationship with NASCAR and especially with Indianapolis," Hollander said. "Consumers see Allstate in a very forward way, not only through what we do at the race but through our national advertising. They see us throughout the entire season, with what we do with Kasey and some of the other drivers and we show up very big in July with the Brickyard."

Hollander said that Allstate likes to come in big and paint the town blue. That's what they're doing with their NASCAR properties, and the avidity of the NASCAR fan is a major reason.

"We're very focused [in sports properties]," she said. "We are a U.S. Olympic sponsor and we have a very large college football platform. We'd rather go deep than spread ourselves too thin. We'd rather have a larger footprint in the few sports that we're in.

"We activate and do things to make sure that our agents are happy and our consumers are happy. We're having a blast with it."