Big leaps by Rogers Cable, Pizza Pizza: Top radio ads – Media Monitors for March 20-26,2006
Toronto-area Hyundai dealers have dethroned Telus Mobility, taking the number spot as the brand with the most ads on Toronto airwaves last week. The wireless giant slipped to number five from the number one spot. Big leaps include Rogers Cable, at number two, way up from the number 93 spot the week prior. Other big gains include Pizza Pizza, which nabs the number four spot after scaling the charts from its previous number 168 position. Check out others topping the radio charts by category and brand in the Toronto market for the week of March 20-26, 2006.
Inserting ads into podcasts gets easier with Pod2Mobile
Pod2Mobile (pod2mobile.com) of Los Angeles has launched a new software suite that incorporates ads into podcasts and sends podcasts and radio programs to mobile phones over the air via its Pod2Mobile app. The podcast advertising model enables audio ads up to 20 seconds at the beginning of each podcast, and has features such as an advertiser control panel for easy creation and content upload, podcast and category targeting, demo and time-based statistical tracking, and automated insertion functionality.
The company estimates that $80 million U.S. will be spent on podcast ads this year and projects that to jump to $300 million U.S. in 2010. It also says a recent study by London, UK-based tech firm Airwide Solutions indicates that 89% of major brands expect to do some marketing via mobile phone by 2008. The Pod2Mobile software supports handsets on U.S. services Verizon, Sprint, Cingular and T-Mobile.
Dove takes Desperate Housewife from Oscars to the Web
Dove, a Unilever brand, has launched its new line of Calming Night bath and body products with a campaign that includes a series of three Webisodes starring Oscar-nominated actress and Desperate Housewives star, Felicity Huffman. In each Webisode, Huffman drifts into a dream world after an evening shower with Dove’s Calming Night body wash and is transported into classic episodes of The Brady Bunch, The Munsters, and Leave it to Beaver. Thanks to the visual effects created by San Francisco- and Santa Monica, CA-based studio Radium, she converses and interacts with the shows’ characters as she takes over as housekeeper for the Brady Bunch, and finds out that her Desperate Housewives brood are not as creepy as the Munsters – and that cute little Beaver isn’t quite as charming as he seems.
The campaign runs until April 9 and also includes TV spots and other marketing initiatives. The Webisodes, which were directed by Penny Marshall and produced by Science + Fiction and Mindshare Entertainment of New York, can be viewed at dovenight.com.
Celeb gossip show hits the radio airwaves on FLOW 93.5
Now here’s programming news of a different kind – radio programming. With the popularity of celebrity gossip mags, it’s only fitting to have this as part of any self-respecting entertainment news roster. Enter Toronto’s urban station, FLOW 93.5. The station is now airing Lainey’s Gossip to its regular weekly programming. Vancouver-based Elaine (Lainey) Lui runs a blog/newsletter website of the same name (laineygossip.com) and is a correspondent for CTV’s eTalk. Lainey’s Gossip airs every Wednesday between 4:30 and 5 p.m. on FLOW.
Race doc series has U.S. buzzing
Sun TV is behind the Canadian premiere of the controversial documentary series Black. White. The show takes an African-American family and a Caucasian family and makes them up to look like members of the opposite race. See the photo to the right, which depicts the Caucasian folks as they are, and then as they are made up to look like black folks. The families then go about their daily lives and find out what it’s like to walk in the other race’s shoes. They have their beliefs and core values challenged in the process. Actor/producer/writer Ice Cube is one of the folks behind the series, which has already created a lot of talk in the U.S. Black. White airs Sundays at 8 p.m., beginning April 9.
New show brings new life to old junk
There are food junkies, TV junkies and, well, just junkies. HGTV is introducing a new show, Junk Brothers that follows the escapades of two brothers who can only be described as junk junkies. Jim and Steve Kelley pick up furniture and other goodies left on the curb and give them new life: an old dryer morphs into a computer desk and chair; an abandoned bicycle becomes a ceiling fan. HGTV asked research firm Vision Critical to survey 1,600 nationwide respondents, aged 18 to 65 and found that 40% of Canucks have gone ‘shopping’ curbside so there might be an aud for this show. Junk Brothers runs Thursdays at 9:30 p.m., beginning April 6.
Event
April 27
Sponsorship Marketing Council of Canada: Annual Conference & Sponsorship Marketing Awards
Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto
416.964.3805
www.sponsorshipmarketing.ca
Conference topics include ‘Soccer’s Global Juggernaut – The View from FIFA,’ presented by Jérôme Valcke, director of Zurich-based FIFA’s marketing & TV division. Valcke will discuss how the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, world football’s governing body, works with sponsors to ensure they receive a maximum return on their marketing investments.
Toronto gets a soccer team and stadium; searches for sponsors
A new team is coming to town and along with it, a new stadium to be built on Toronto’s Exhibition grounds slated for spring 2007. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) is bringing soccer to Toronto via a yet-to-be-named team under the New York-based Major League Soccer (MLS) umbrella. The Toronto team’s new home, a 20,000-seat stadium, is searching for naming rights by way of sponsorship now.
SRG: Ethnic Canucks name their preferred media brands
Solutions Research Group (srgnet.com) has found that while ethnic media is strong, some of Canada’s top mainstream media brands are also quite popular with the country’s ethnic consumers, particularly television. In its Diversity in Canada study, the Toronto-based market research firm found that about half of Chinese and South Asian Canadians are reached by English-language newspapers and radio while 65% to 74% can be reached by English TV. Canada’s population increases by one million new Canadians every four years. Right now nearly five million ethnic consumers are located in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal – the cities that SRG focused on when conducting its Diversity in Canada research.
In addition to media habits, the study profiles the lifestyle habits, social perspectives, and brand usage of Black Canadians as well as those of Chinese, South Asian, West Asian, Hispanic, and Italian background.
Fresh Events launches mobile video truck
Thornhill, ON-based OOH company Fresh Events is launching Mobile Video Signs (MVS) media in Canada. Picture a truck with digital video screens, providing nearly 100 square feet of ad space at 6’x8′ per panel. Now picture the video screens with the technology to play full streaming video and audio. In Florida, the MVS vehicle has touted products from brands such as Adidas, Foot Locker and Fuji. ‘They’ve been very receptive in the U.S. because it’s digital and it’s mobile,’ says Phil Elmaleh, managing partner at Fresh Events. Elmaleh adds that the company has plans to circulate the truck around the GTA in April and in the summer, they’ll be launching their After Dark program. ‘We’ll be hitting the entertainment district, targeting the 18-34 demo and going after the beverage and lifestyle brands,’ he says. The truck holds 10 ad faces, and campaigns cost between $1300-1500 per day for two spots to a max of $4500 for all ad faces. MVS is able to play digital video content without much modification, saving on production costs for potential advertisers.
http://www.freshevents.ca
They put ads where? Salon patrons get nailed with ads on emery boards and oranges tout new EA game
New York-based alternative OOH company Ambient Planet is taking advantage of the captive audience that is the gals at the nail bar. Branded emery boards are being given away in more than 5,000 beauty salons across the U.S. as part of a promo push for the BBC America series, Footballers Wive$. Talk about demo-appropriate. In addition to traditional product samples, other types of in-salon advertising offered by Ambient Planet include branded aprons for staff, t-shirts, manicure mats and nail decals.
Meanwhile, game giant Electronic Arts unleashed thousands of oranges throughout Chicago, New York and San Francisco streets in a bid to pump The Godfather: The Game. The fruit bear a sticker with a call to action, directing folks to a website promoting the new game. In the movie trilogy, oranges are a symbol for renewal.
BBM Media Snapshot: Canadians who enjoy snowmobiling
* Two million Canadians (8%) snowmobile regularly or sometimes.
* Canadians 12 to 24 years old are one and a half times more likely to snowmobile.
* Males (58%) are slightly more likely to snowmobile.
* Atlantic Canada and the Prairie Provinces (both with 10%) have the highest incidence of snowmobiling but Ontario and Quebec are close behind (both with 8%).
* Sports and activities related with speed seem to be preferred by this group. Snowmobilers participate in jet skiing, water skiing, and power boating two to three times more than the national average.
* When analyzing magazine titles read, snowmobilers are 1.7 times more likely to read Playboy, 1.6 times more likely to read Seventeen and 1.6 times more likely to read Maxim, compared to the national averages.
* 15% own a family cottage (one and half times more than the national average).
* The top media by yesterday exposure are: TV (87%), radio (85%), and Internet (64%).
* Snowmobilers are 1.7 times more likely to prefer AOR/mainstream rock and 1.4 more likely to prefer mainstream Top 40/CHR, when comparing their favourite radio formats to the national averages.
Source: BBM RTS Canada Fall ’04 / Spring ’05
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.
National Geographic explores rainforests and men on the moon with new series
Journey into Amazonia makes its Canadian premiere on Thursday, May 18 at 9 p.m. The three-part, hour-long series delves deep into the rainforest examining the wildlife within. Friday, May 19 at 9 p.m. sees the debut of Space Race, a four-parter that follows Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong before their feats made them famous.
PMB Factoid
Video gamers (past month); by age
Canadian brands will get MTV six different ways
Thirsty for your MTV? You’re about to be satiated – six different ways. The MTV drought ends at 6 p.m. tonight and in anticipation of its Canadian launch, MTV unveiled a six-pronged strategy to net eyeballs across every platform it can. The ‘Six Arms of MTV’ incorporates distribution through conventional and specialty channels, mobile, video on demand (VOD), branded live events at the Masonic Temple and through MTV Overdrive, a broadband on-demand service.
