History reveals its Secrets
History’s got a new series in the works. SAS Survival Secrets exposes covert operating techniques and strategies needed to survive in the tough military force, from surviving torture to coping with hostage-taking situations. The show airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/9 p.m. PT, beginning April 25.
Belgrave named RMB president
Gary Belgrave has taken over as president of the Radio Marketing Bureau (RMB). He replaces John Harding who announced last October that he planned to step aside after seven years in the post. Belgrave worked in radio on-air in Montreal early on in his 25-year-plus career before moving into the advertising and marketing side of the business with agency stints in Toronto, Detroit, New York, and London, England. His most recent role was international marketing and advertising consultant and before that, he was EVP at Young & Rubicam Toronto.
Events
5-7 April 2006
76th Annual INMA World Congress
The Drake Hotel, Chicago
214-373-9111
richard.robichaud@inma.org
http://www.inma.org/2006-chicago.cfm
The International Newspaper Marketing Association conference looks at the market and management realities facing newspapers today.
PMB Factoid
Canadians who went to the movies (past 30 days); by age
One to Watch: HGTV and Food nets move from DIY formula to story-driven fare – and it’s working
Alliance Atlantis DIY darlings HGTV and the Food Network have recently undergone programming makeovers, mixing in more entertaining, character-driven shows like Designer Superstar Challenge and I Do…Let’s Eat, along with their traditional ‘practical/how-to’ fare. The change is leading to a shift in the nets’ media strategy from traditional TV, OOH and print spots to more guerrilla-type promos. So far, the bid to expand reach beyond the primary target of DIY Martha Stewart wannabes is working: according to Nielsen, this winter to date HGTV is tracking 43% ahead of last year (A25-54 average minute audience or AMA), while Food saw a record audience growth of 25% in fall 2005 versus fall 2004 (A25-54 AMA).
ACNielsen launches decisionSMART
ACNielsen Canada has launched Business Assessor, the first application in its new decisionSMART service designed to help manufacturers and retailers of fmcg understand the marketing mix elements effecting changes in product sales and how to act on the findings. The online tool combines traditional price and trade promotion modeling with weekly scanning sales data to understand the impact of the promotion mix on sales; what activities cause which results; and identify the appropriate decisions.
Dose leverages Oscar fever with week-long election
Dose, the CanWest-owned multi-platform brand, has built an election around the 78th Annual Academy Awards involving feature stories each day, campaign buttons and online voting at dose.ca/Oscars in five key award categories. Feature stories will cover all the nominated movies, directors and actors in addition to suggested campaign slogans, songs and hot-button issues. Campaign buttons are being distributed by Dosereporters in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver featuring catchy campaign slogans to spotlight award nominees and drive readers to vote online. The March 3 issue of Dose is a weekend guide to the Oscars and the results and event coverage will be fully covered in the magazine issue and online.
Toyota short debuts on Oscars
Toyota Canada will be launching its all-new 2007 Toyota Camry during the broadcast of The 78th Annual Academy Awards, Sunday on CTV. The two-minute feature commercial – What You Want Is What You Need – will be unveiled during ET’s pre-Oscar show at 8 p.m. and then will run once only in Canada inside the Academy Awards broadcast. The mega-spot created by Saatchi & Saatchi will be retooled into a 60-second version and along with two new 30-seconds will air on CTV through May.
Top TV advertisers: Entertainment trumps public service; Eloda ad analysis – Feb. 17-23, 2006
Entertainment remains a strong category with the most new advertisers in French markets (38%) and second most in English markets (19%) behind the public service category (26%). P&G and General Motors kept their hold on the number one and two spots when comparing brands with the largest variety of TV ads for Feb. 17 to 23 versus the same time last year. In English Canada, the top three categories with the largest variety of spots in rotation were entertainment (14.5%), retail (13.1%), and public service (9.7%). 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
Top radio advertisers: Telus gets chased by the Ontario government; Media Monitors – Feb. 20-26, 2006
Telus Mobility led the pack by calling in with the most ads on rotation in the Toronto market last week. The Government of Ontario ran second with its slate of union-related ads while amusements and events company Canadian International nabbed the third spot. The restaurant category continued to lead with 33 advertisers tracked last week, followed by amusements and events (14 advertisers) and cars/light trucks and local dealers (38 advertisers). Check out others topping the radio charts by category and brand in the Toronto market for the week of Feb 20-26.
http://www.mediamonitors.com
Youthography: MP3s still main reason for teen downloading
Youthography (youthography.com), a Toronto-based young consumer marketing and communications consultancy, says its 2005 poll found that nine out of 10 teens and young adults download and that MP3 downloading is the most prevalent reason given for doing so. That is consistent with what the company found in 2003, although at that time only 15% of youth had portable MP3 players so most were downloading the songs to computers. In just two years the percentage of young consumers with MP3s grew to 50% with 72% of teens downloading 1 to 20 songs each week. MP3s were strongest with the 14 to 29 demo – females, 63.6% and males, 66.5% – while downloading of games was heaviest amongst those aged 9 to 13. Pictures, games, movie trailers, TV shows and commercials were on the list of content that teens and young adults were downloading.
Although downloads of sexually explicit material was virtually non-existent amongst 9 to 13 year olds and females 14 to 29, it accounted for 27.1% of the material downloaded by males aged 14 to 29. Youthography conducts a national survey of over 1500 Canadians aged 9 to 29 and puts its findings into Ping, a quarterly publication highlighting major developing trends within the Canadian youth culture.
Babe watch at the Juno Awards: Pam Anderson to heat up Halifax
The host of The 2006 Juno Awards is sure to draw more eyeballs for its April 2 airing on CTV. Pamela Anderson, former Baywatch babe and ‘The Most Powerful Canadian in Hollywood’ in 2005 according to Canadian Business magazine, has been confirmed as host of the two-hour awards broadcast. Scheduled performers to date include Bedouin Soundclash, Broken Social Scene, 2006 Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee Bryan Adams, Coldplay, Michael Bublé and Nickelback.
Multi-platform coverage of Paralympic Winter Games on CBC
CBC will be presenting coverage of Torino 2006 – The Paralympic Winter Games daily from March 11 to 19 on CBC News, CBC Newsworld, CBC Radio and on its Web site at cbc.ca/paralympics. Weekdays, five-minute packages will be airing while weekend coverage will be on CBC Sports Saturday. A special half-hour broadcast welcoming the athletes home with air March 28 at 7 p.m. on CBC and three Paralympic specials will air on CBC Sports April, 1, 8 and 15. Torino 2006 will involve 700 athletes from 41 countries vying for the 58 medals to be awarded for sports including alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, ice sledge hockey and wheelchair curling.
Judge Alex presides on OMNI.2 in March
An ex-police officer, and now trial attorney and criminal court judge, Judge Alex, will preside in a half-hour drama series on OMNI.2 beginning Monday, March 6 at 5:30 p.m. The show will air every weekday.
