Rogers Sportsnet is looking for brands to sponsor text to screen initiatives on shows Hockey Central, Primetime Sports with Bill McCown and the younger-skewing, extreme sport Fuel TV. So far signed on Hockey Central is Mississauga, Ont.-based eatery Boston Pizza.
‘Every Monday, an SMS chat ticker invites viewers to send in comments and every two minutes, the Boston Pizza logo scrolls across the screen,’ says Dave Ballingall, VP of marketing at Rogers Sportsnet. Ballingall explains that the mobile’s bounce-back message is also branded with a promo spot, while a live SMS moderator prompts the audience and posts messages related to the brand. ‘The number of participants swing dependent on the news that day,’ he adds. ‘When the NHL settled their dispute, we had 2000 text messages. We tend to average about 100-200 messages within a half-hour show.’ Hockey Central boasts average viewer numbers at 30,000 in its Ontario edition and 38,000 in its Pacific edition. The Boston Pizza deal was done direct.
