The bigger the teeth, the bigger the ratings.
That, in a nutshell, is Discovery Channel’s rationale for saving its popular ‘Shark Week’ to kick off the new fall season.
‘There’s a fascination with sharks,’ says Meg Pinto, Discovery’s vice-president of marketing and sales. Last year, this week-long celebration – or vilification, depending on your viewpoint – of the toothsome sea creatures pulled in 121,000 viewers on its strongest night. That, she notes, is more than double the specialty service’s average viewership of 55,000.
Not surprisingly, the channel has turned Shark Week into a major platform for sponsorship and promotional activities. Like many broadcasters, both specialty and conventional, Discovery has become increasingly ambitious in its efforts to create value-added opportunities for advertisers around the fall launch period.
This year’s Shark Week programming was sponsored by Tremco Canada and Altamira Investment Services. The channel also created a promotion of its own to generate excitement about the week. The phone-in ‘Spot the Fin & Win’ contest, which offered a grand prize trip for two to Bora Bora, was advertised on-air, on radio, in TV Guide, and through posters in Rogers Video stores. It attracted more than 5,000 calls on the first night alone. Similar contests were also created for cable operators and their customer service representatives, and for ad agencies.
Pinto says it’s critical for a broadcaster to find some compelling way to turn the launch of the fall season into a major event. ‘You want to tell a story when everyone else is telling a story,’ she says.
Jim Johnson, sales promotion manager for Atlantis Broadcasting, the parent of Life Network and hgtv, agrees.
‘There’s so much excitement around the new fall schedules that I think it’s important to stand out,’ he says. ‘Advertisers recognize the inherent value of participating in a promotion and aligning their product with a certain event.’
Life had little trouble lining up a sponsor for this fall’s ‘Meet Martha’ contest, a promotion created for its top property, Martha Stewart Living. The contest, which will send two viewers to Calgary to meet the home and garden diva, tied in neatly with an ikea store relaunch in that same city.
The six-week promotion, which marks ikea’s first partnership with Life, includes two 30-second spots inviting viewers to tune in to the Martha Stewart season premiere to win the prize.
Life has also forged a sponsorship deal with Playtex Shapewear, whereby the undergarment company will offer makeovers to viewers of the fashion, beauty and health show Images. The contest, which is being promoted in the Shapewear areas of The Bay, Eaton’s and Sears, offers a $1,000 shopping spree at any of the participating stores as well.
While there’s no on-air advertising, Johnson says that short fashion segments on the show will help support the promotion.
While Atlantis generally creates opportunities that are then shopped around to different advertisers, there are instances in which a promotion will be designed with a specific advertiser’s objectives in mind.
For cleaning products company Clorox of Canada, for example, the broadcaster has created a promotion tying the brand to hgtv’s home repair show, Just Ask Jon Eakes. An on-air spot encourages viewers to pick up coupons and ballots in stores for the opportunity to win a $9,000 bathroom renovation. The renovation itself will be spotlighted on future Jon Eakes programs.
Johnson says Clorox has thrown an enormous amount of support behind the promotion, including in-store activities and a massive fsi campaign. And with good reason: A similar promotion on Life this past April resulted in ‘tremendous’ sales for the company, he says.
To promote its new property, South Park, The Comedy Network has partnered with Molson Breweries and Sony of Canada on ‘The South Park Comedy Network Tour,’ a traveling stand-up comedy show scheduled to visit 20 campuses across the country this fall.
Molson is presenting sponsor for the tour, which features a screening of the director’s cut of the very first South Park episode.
Karen Gruson, The Comedy Network’s manager of communications, says that bar patrons can win tickets to the event, at which they have the opportunity to win a large-screen tv and vcr.
The channel will also run a contest later in the fall with Signature Vacations, which will offer viewers of the popular talk show Open Mike with Mike Bullard the chance to win transportation to Toronto for a taping. The contest will be promoted heavily on the network, and a ballot will run in TV Times.
Conventional broadcasters, too, are pushing this fall season with gusto – and they’re having little trouble persuading advertisers to piggyback on the promotion machine.
‘There’s a real buzz around tv at this time of the year,’ says Dave Ballingall, director of marketing for ctv.
General Motors of Canada, for one, has paired with ctv to put a promotional push behind the introduction of its new Oldsmobile Alero. The tag line for the Alero campaign, ‘Start Something,’ fits thematically with the launch of the new season, says Carol Faulkner, ctv’s marketing manager – and the network’s ads in TV Guide to promote the first night of the season echo that line. (‘Start watching a new ctv season.’)
gm sponsored the season premiere of the popular Ally McBeal, which featured a call-in contest for the chance to win one of two new Aleros – a contest promoted wall-to-wall on ctv in the weeks leading up to the broadcast.
The auto maker wanted to create a big splash for the new vehicle, Faulkner says. The launch of a new season – and the premiere of ctv’s hottest show – offered the requisite excitement.
‘It’s good for us, it’s good for the client,’ says Faulkner. ‘It’s that extra little kick.’
Global Television, for its part, lined up two season premiere sponsorships. Biore sponsored fall’s first new episode of Beverly Hills 90210, while Neutrogena sponsored the Party of Five premiere.
Both deals included pre-promo airtime as well as sponsorship of the actual broadcasts, says Stephanie Blondal, manager of advertising and sales promotion for Global’s sales arm, Canvideo Television Sales.
Saturn, meanwhile, has been involved in a unique promotion of its own on Global. While the auto manufacturer didn’t sponsor any specific programs, it did invite viewers to tune in to watch the network’s Tuesday- and Thursday-night lineups.
‘It offers the company good profile and association with those shows,’ says Blondal.
Also in this special report:
* Seeking value in a complex world: There might be no such thing as a simple plan any more, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an effective one, say the experts p.B2
* Dairy Farmers milk TVO Kids: Popular on-air personalities lend their appeal to healthy-eating segments p.B15
* Spotlight onÉ Television Creative p.B18
