Rich Lamprey, Director of Sports Marketing for Aaron Rents, told RTO Online in a recent interview that 40% of NASCAR fans are women.

Janet Parker, one of the most popular and successful women on the professional bass fishing circuit. Listen to RTO Online's podcast interview with Janet Parker.

Which is more effective for reaching female consumers, advertising on soap operas or during NFL games? If you guessed soap operas, you would be very wrong. A just released survey of over 15,000 consumers by BIGresearch found that 61% of women regularly watch sports versus 41% that regularly watch soaps.

Aaron Rents (RNT) is one company that has found success in sports marketing. The company sponsors everything from Bush Series racing and Arena Football to professional angling. In July, 2006, Aaron's began sponsoring Janet Parker, one of the most popular and successful women on the professional bass fishing circuit (see story). Parker was the first angler in history of either gender to finish in the Top 10 of their first FLW Tour event.

Rich Lamprey, Director of Sports Marketing for Aaron Rents, told RTO Online in a recent interview that 40% of NASCAR fans are women. Listen to our podcast interview with Rich Lamprey from the 2007 Aarons National Managers Meeting in Dallas, Texas. Lamprey details Aaron's approach to sports marketing and the company's long term relationship with Michael Waltrip.

The crown jewel of Aaron's sports marketing program is the Talladega Dream Weekend. The company pulls out all the stops to entertain, and market to, the estimated 200,000 attendees and the millions of racing fans watching on TV - a large percentage of which are women (see RTO Online's photo gallery of the 2007 Talladega Dream Weekend).

"Conventional wisdom says soap operas are better for reaching women,” said Gary Drenik, President & CEO of BIGresearch. "But in media consumption, as in fashion, there's no such thing as one size fits all for today's women. Their media consumption is as complex as their shopping behaviors and marketers/advertisers who wish to increase their ROI need to understand these differences."

Differences are evident for women who exercise / play sports while using media as 34.5% of Hispanic women, 31.4% of African American women, 39.9% of Asian women and 27.3% of Caucasian women say they do. The percentage of women who search online for sports also differs by ethnic groups: 49.3% of Hispanic women, 43.5% of African American women, 50.3% of Asian women and 40% of Caucasian women say they search for sports information online.