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PMB Factoid
Korean car in household – by city
Trojan woos women
Trojan Condoms unveiled a new brand targeted at women yesterday, called Elexa. Products include condoms, cloths, gel and a vibrating ring, and will be sold in feminine care aisles instead of condom sections at retailers like Shoppers Drug Mart, PharmaPlus and Wal-Mart.
A campaign to support the launch will break Oct. 3, with TV spots and print ads in women’s consumer mags like Flare, LouLou and Elle Quebec. A Web site, www.elexabytrojan.ca, is already active.
Creative for the campaign was done by New York-based Kaplan Thaler, and adapted for Canada by Allard Johnson. Maria Spensieri, Catherine Panarelli and Jocelyne Beaudet at Allard Johnson oversaw the Canadian media buys.
189 more stores join U.S. PPM test
Arbitron’s U.S. trial of its Portable People Meter (PPM) system has added the 189 Houston-area stores of that country’s largest drugstore chain, Walgreens. To take part, the stores will use encoded audio programming from In-Store Broadcasting Network consisting of music, third-party advertising, and in-house marketing messages.
According to Scarborough Research, at least 47% of the market’s adult population typically visits a Walgreens store each month.
Other retailers participating in the test include 109 Kroger stores, Best Buy, Gap, Gallery Furniture, National CineMedia, and Old Navy.
In its Houston test, Arbitron is using the PPM to track consumer exposure to media and entertainment, including broadcast, cable and satellite TV; terrestrial, satellite, and online radio; cinema advertising; and place-based electronic media. Arbitron plans to study the correlation between store traffic generated by advertising to the retail visits of people exposed to media carrying a retailer’s ads.
CanWest first foreigner to nab U.K. radio licence, do IPO for print properties
The relaxing of the U.K. Communications Act has enabled Winnipeg-based CanWest Global Communications to become the first foreign company to be granted a licence by OFCOM, the broadcast regulatory body in the U.K. The FM licence has been issued for a 12-year term and the new station, Original 106, will target listeners aged 40 to 59 in the areas of Southampton, Bournemouth, and Portsmouth in southern England.
CanWest owns 95% of the station while Seven Broadcast, operated by two U.K. radio consultants, holds the remaining 5%.
The company is not new to international expansion. In addition to its TV, radio, and newspaper holdings in Canada, CanWest has a stake in Network Ten TV in Australia, five radio networks in New Zealand, and in TV3, Ireland’s first commercial TV station. Its previous attempts to expand in the U.K. involved failed bids for a TV licence and radio licences in Belfast and Manchester. In a CanWest release, president/CEO Leonard Asper said the company was encouraged by the awarding of the licence and plans to ‘vigorously pursue our international expansion initiatives.’
Adding to the kitty, CanWest is going public with a chunk of its newspaper and interactive business. CanWest MediaWorks Income Fund would hold approximately 28% of the Canadian newspaper business. CanWest-owned The National Post will not be included in the IPO. The transfer should yield about $1.45 billion. That money plus $830 million the company will borrow will be used to buy the businesses of CanWest MediaWorks.
Nielsen Media Research Spend Trend: Pamper yourself
TV is tops for cosmetics, grooming, and personal care products. It not only grabbed the bulk of spending in this category from 2001 to 2004, its share of the ad dollars grew greatly each year. The biggest spenders were cleanser/cosmetic and fitness and health advertisers but the largest spending increase was seen in the depilatories/feminine shaving products/body hair bleach product segment, which grew from 6.8% in 2001 to 17.3% last year.
Real Estate Book inks deal with Sympatico
The Real Estate Book and RealEstateBook.com, owned by Network Communications, are now the exclusive real estate content provider for Sympatico/MSN.ca. Sympatico has an effective reach of more than 80% of the online population and 15.5 million unique visitors each month.
Cossette loses Richards
Lauren Richards, SVP/national media director of Cossette Media for 18 years, has departed the Toronto-based company, effective last Friday. However she will continue in the capacity of senior consultant, working on projects. Pierre Delegrave, Cossette Media president, will fill the role of national media director for the time being.
Spot auditor expands team
Eloda, a Montreal-based tracker of TV spots, has appointed David Gilmour as CMO. Gilmour comes from Cirque du Soleil. Also appointed is Johanne Fondrouge as marketing director. Fondrouge hails from Cheval-Théâtre. Both are new positions. The new team will be pursuing expansion of a new broadcast ad monitoring and audit service in Canada and the U.S.
W Net study to fuel brand extension
W Net has released a study, entitled ‘HEReport,’ which found that both moms and non-moms are hardwired with the same interests. The difference? The amount of time afforded to moms to pursue them. The report, which will be shared with the net’s advertisers and producers, was created to ‘establish a continual dialogue with Canadian women and gain insights into the demo,’ says director of marketing Shelley Findlay. W Network is currently at the negotiation stage of a brand extension initiative based on feedback from the HEReport panel, however further details were not disclosed.
For the report, W built an online, ‘blind study’ panel of 2,100 Canadian women. This is just one of the ways the channel hopes to develop targeted programming and, where possible, extend a brand. W is, after all, the net that aired Beauty Quest, a documentary inspired by Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. (See MIC July 7/05.) The ‘HEReport’ also finds that women are the primary decision makers in the purchasing of family clothing (75.9%,) groceries (75.4%) and, surprisingly, computers (43.4%.)
CTV.ca beefing up its content
Plans are in the works at CTV’s Web site, CTV.ca, to increase the local news content in the coming months, and to add a dedicated online destination for Toronto International Film Festival coverage (filmfest.ctv.ca). According to a recent report by Virginia-based comScore MediaMetrix, a consultancy firm that tracks consumer behaviour, the site continues to attract a growing number of Canadians. More than 2.86 million unique visitors surfed the news-based Web site in the month of July, according to the report, and traffic to the site has more than tripled in the past two years.
News Canada goes digital
Toronto-based News Canada is getting into the digital service game. The news provider now offers video news segment creation for clients in the government, financial, retail and fashion industries among others. The videos, which typically last two minutes, are distributed to major Internet and digital content providers across Canada such as Sympatico.MSN.ca and Rogers Yahoo! News Canada has created video news bytes for Pharma Plus on West Nile Virus, for Michelin on winter driving tips and for Canadian Living on cancer prevention.
According to spokesperson, Maria Koukopoulos, ‘Digital service rates range from $5,000 to $15,000, depending on if we are creating a new piece for a client, repurposing a piece that either we have created for a previous video news release or one that we already have.’
http://www.newscanada.com
BBM Media Snapshot: Canadians and baseball
* 1 million Canadians (4%) regularly play baseball/softball when in season.
* 81% of regular baseball/softball players are under 44 years of age. Players aged 12 to 17 years old play 1.7 times more often than the national average and those aged 25 to 34 play 1.6 times more.
* 70% of regular baseball/softball players are males.
* Regular baseball/softball players are big fans of professional sports events. They attended 2.5 times more baseball games, 2.3 times more football games, 2.3 times more basketball games, and 1.8 times more hockey games when compared to the national averages.
* They also attended twice as many sporting/racing/air shows during the last year compared to the national average.
* 42% of regular baseball/softball players prefer domestic beers 1.8 times more often than the national average.
* They are also interested in gambling. Regular baseball/softball players bet on horseracing twice as often as the national average and play sports lotteries three times more than the national average.
* TV (90%,) radio (90%) and the Internet (66%) are their top three media by yesterday exposure.
* Their favourite radio formats (weekly reach) are: classic mainstream rock (17% – 1.5 times the national average,) news/talk (14%) and mainstream top 40/CHR (12%,) They also listen 2.6 times more to modern/alternative rock stations.
* Movies, hockey (when available), news/current affairs, and softball (3.4 times more than the national average) are their most popular television programs by weekly average viewing. They also watch 2.7 times more NFL games, 2.7 times more basketball games, 2.3 times more golf games and 1.9 times more wrestling matches, compared to the national averages.
Source: BBM RTS Canada Fall ’04 / Spring ’04, individuals 12+
The preceding information is from BBM RTS, a syndicated consumer-media survey of over 60,000 Canadians, conducted twice a year by BBM Canada. For more information contact Craig Dorning of BBM Canada: cdorning@bbm.ca.
TSN hits ice with 2005/06 NHL national broadcast package
TSN welcomes back the NHL with a comprehensive schedule of 71 regular season games and the first three rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. In a network first, TSN will televise four games on opening night (Oct. 5) using a split feed. Wednesday Night Hockey returns with at least one game every Wednesday night during the regular season. All 32 of TSN’s games on that evening are exclusive, as TSN is the only Canadian network televising an NHL game during that time.
CTV unveils start dates for fall shows
Degrassi: The Next Generation, Mondays at 8:30, beginning Sept. 19. (This will be accompanied by a documentary to celebrate the show’s 25th anniversary: The Degrassi Story on Saturday, Sept. 17 at 7 p.m.)
Invasion, Wednesdays at 7 p.m., beginning Sept. 21.
Ghost Whisperer, Fridays at 8 p.m., beginning Sept. 23.
Inconceivable, Fridays at 10 p.m., beginning Sept. 30.
Close To Home Tuesdays at 8 p.m., beginning Oct. 4.
CTV will also be airing the 57th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards Sunday, Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. Ellen DeGeneres will host.
- Corus Entertainment to shut down five children’s channels
- Snap appoints The Trade Desk’s Bob Cornwall as new GM in Canada
- Industry experts weigh in on TikTok Canada’s halt to cultural funding
- Touché! wins new grocery client in Quebec and New Brunswick
- Nextdoor rolls out ads for the first time in Canada
