CycleMedia billboards are on the move in Toronto
Toronto-based OOH company CycleMedia is taking to the streets beginning next week shilling for Scarborough,ON-based financial service chain, Your Money Store. The company makes ad messages move via bicycle – billboards that boast sound are strapped to the back of bicycles set on a predetermined route within the GTA. President Tom Greenberg says CycleMedia has a client list that includes the City of Toronto, RedTO.com and 102.1 The Edge among others. With seven bicycles at the ready, he says a cyclist typically nets 75,000 impressions per day. A minimum daily cost for one unit runs at $300. CycleMedia has plans to expand into Vancouver by the end of summer.
http://www.cyclemedia.ca
Nielsen Media Research Spend Trend: Spring cleaning
TV sparkles with spring cleaning
Television gets the bulk of the cleaning product and service spending although 2005 netted the medium the smallest percentage over the four-year period. Magazines are a distant second but rallied last year to come up just short of double the previous year’s spending. Overall spending in traditional media declined in this category in 2005, likely reflecting the trend for major marketers P&G and Unilever to get closer to their consumers with more direct tactics such as promotions, in-store, Internet, and email marketing.
Debbie Travis gets show off the ground
A start date has been determined for the new show From the Ground Up with Debbie Travis, to air on Global Television. Beginning Sunday, April 23 at 7 p.m., the decorating dynamo tries to instill passion and a work ethic in 12 members of what she considers to be a lost and disillusioned generation, those aged 20-30, who she thinks want everything quickly, but aren’t prepared to work for it. The building trade protégés, hand-picked by Travis, must build a mansion to the highest standards. When the mansion is sold, viewers of the program will choose the worker they think has the best attitude and ability to walk away with $250,000 from the profits. The show runs for 10 one-hour eps.
TSN, Degree up the ante
TSN and Degree antiperspirant are teaming for season two of Canada’s biggest poker tournament. The Degree Poker Championship will be held May 3-12 at the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort and will air in prime in September on TSN and TSN HD. There will be seven one-hour shows as opposed to the six aired in 2005. This year’s tournament marks the second of a three-year deal between TSN Events and Degree.
PMB Factoid
Canadians who go dancing; by occupation
W Net and JWT study: Women becoming more like men, says JWT EVP Marian Salzman
R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Looks like women are getting more of it – and a lot of other things — these days, according to research conducted by JWT and the W Network. New York-based, global trendspotter and JWT EVP and director of strategic content, Marian Salzman, the woman who coined the term metrosexual and author of Buzz: Harness the Power of Influence and Create Demand interpreted key findings of the research in Toronto last week.
Lay’s contest offers chance to be ‘Greatest Canadian Hockey Fan’
Frito-Lay Canada and the Toronto-based Hockey Hall of Fame are teaming up to name one Canadian as the first to be honoured in the Hockey Hall of Fame as the ‘Greatest Canadian Hockey Fan.’ Hopefuls can visit lays.ca to enter for a chance to win the grand prize package that includes a trip for two to Toronto, a guided tour of the Hall of Fame, tickets to an NHL game and the Hall of Fame Induction Celebration, as well as spending money. Frito Lay Canada will also be handing out $50,000 in minor hockey sponsorships as secondary prizes. TV ads will run nationally on TSN to support the promo. TSN did the Web and TV creative while Capital C provided in-store elements. Media buys were done in-house. Jeff Klein, senior marketing manager at Lay’s, says the contest has ‘very broad consumer appeal’ and the company is hoping to make this an annual event, although this has not been confirmed yet.
The Ultimate Fan display will be housed at a pillar leading to the Fan Fun Zone within the Hockey Hall of Fame. Within the Zone, Lay’s has also sponsored an interactive game called ‘Lay’s Shut Out.’ Klein says the primary objective of the promotion is brand building. ‘This is a ‘can’t buy’ experience,’ he says. ‘The [winner] gets bragging rights as the first fan and their profile and picture will be in a display for one year.’ The Hockey Hall of Fame welcomes 325,000 folks per year.
Public service is tops: Top TV ads – Eloda analysis for March 17-23, 2006
Seems advertisers in the public service category are doing most of the spending this year – or at least, last week. Public service nabbed the top spot at 33% for the period of March 17-23, 2006, up 8% from last year during the same time period. Entertainment hangs on to the number two spot, at 25%, in a year over year comparison, with 2006 numbers matching 2005 numbers. Check out others topping the charts, and which brands had the most new spots. This info was gathered through Montreal-based ELODA’s online TV ad tracking, auditing and viewing services. All data supplied is based on the ELODA recording grid.
http://www.eloda.com
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.
