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Nielsen Media Research Spend Trend: Hair care and accessories
TV and magazines have good hair days
TV and magazines make the cut in a category that’s all about image, glitz, glamour, and having the right look. Marketers of hair care products and accessories greatly increased their spending between 2001 and 2004 but continued to funnel their budgets almost exclusively into these two visual media.
CTV preps new mega-buck Canuck drama: Whistler
Cameras have started rolling on the set of Whistler, a new Canadian hour-long drama, set in, you guessed it, Whistler, B.C. The show boasts ‘the biggest production budget ever,’ pulling together CTV, and prodcos Toronto-based Blueprint Entertainment and Vancouver-based Boardwatch Productions. U.S. cablecaster, The N, a network for teens, will also be adding Whistler to its schedule. The 13-part series is set to air in HD in 2006. According to the net, product integration opportunities abound.
Bathroom Divas to air January 7 on Bravo!
Bravo! is set to air six-part, hour-long doc series Bathroom Divas: So you want to be an opera star? beginning Saturday, Jan. 7 at 9 p.m. The weekly series follows six finalists hand-picked for an opera boot camp. The last singer standing will be awarded a debut performance with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Discovery to air series on real-life hauntings
Discovery Channel keeps viewers frightened with a new six-part series investigating stories behind real-life hauntings. A Haunting premieres on Friday, Jan. 6 at 10 p.m., dramatizing real-life ghost stories using the latest forensic tools.
Event
Dec. 9
Mobisodes – Content on the Move
The Original Motorcycle Cafe and Lounge, Toronto
info@nmba.ca
This event will examine markets for the mobisode. Panelists Anita Doron, director of the mobisode, The Wandering, and Judy Gladston, executive director of Bravo!FACT and MaxFACT, will discuss the opportunities and challenges.
PMB Factoid
Book store loyalty cards; by city
Text SMS spy missions up excitement around DVD launch
Twentieth Century Fox is recruiting mobile to infiltrate holiday shopping cells. With the launch of the Mr. & Mrs. Smith DVD today, mobile-toting fans across the country will get a chance to participate in secret spy missions. Montreal-based Speed Promotions and Toronto-based Mindshare have spearheaded a national mobile promo (with back-end support by Toronto’s Jambo Mobile) that partners national retailers and brands for prizing as part of the DVD launch. Last week, street teams dressed in spy gear in Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver gave out cards to drive traffic to smith.jambomobile.com, a site where folks are can sign up to participate in text-based ‘Smith missions’ invitations. Other promo executions include radio spots and OOH via Zoom Media and New Ad posters. Mindshare did the media buy. The promo targets 15-24s.
Rogers to launch Canadian version of Hello! celeb mag
Rogers Publishing will be launching a Canadian edition of U.K.-based weekly celebrity mag Hello! The Canuck version is slated to launch August 31, 2006. Hello! has already spawned editions in Russia, Turkey, Greece and the Middle East. In the U.K., Hello!’s circ stands at 392,481 or 1.7 million copies each month.
Volvo brings ocean race online in viral campaign
In an effort to up the excitement around the 2005-2006 Volvo Ocean Race, Toronto-based interactive agency Mindblossom recreated the race online as a viral marketing initiative. An online racing game found at http://vor.volvogeneration.com invites visitors to sign in as the skipper of a three-person virtual boat, recruiting two other crew members to begin playing. ‘It’s a knowledge-based game, with videos, images and multiple choice questions about Volvo. So the whole time people are playing the game, they’re interacting with the brand and getting entertained. We’re taking the brand’s safety image to a more exciting level,’ says Vanessa Willacy, director of strategic planning at Mindblossom. The virtual boat that wins the final leg online will be awarded a trip for six to Göteborg, Sweden to be at the finish line when the real Volvo Ocean Race concludes in early June.
Willacy says there are now 1500 boats (each with three people) participating since the site’s launch in mid-November, and numbers are showing that more than 1000 people participating in the race are within Volvo’s 35+ age target. Other partners in the initiative were MSN Sympatico (which provided live Volvo Ocean race content on its site) and Canadian Yachting magazine (which provided editorial coverage).
Top TV advertisers: Eloda ad analysis
The big holiday push is on with retail, toys & games and entertainment categories taking the top three spots respectively for the largest variety of TV ads during the week of November 18-24. Entertainment holds steady as the category with the most new TV ads last week, remaining at 27%, the same percentage at this time last year. 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: Media Monitors ad analysis
The following research is the first in a new weekly series for MIC that looks at radio ad volume by category and brand, gathered through Vancouver-based Media Monitors’ audio fingerprinting tool. This week, in the Toronto market, Telus Mobility’s ad spots had the most airplay, followed by retailer Canadian Tire. It’s a different story by category, however, with the most advertisers coming out of the car and light trucks dealer categories. Restaurants and live theatre categories followed in the number two and three positions, respectively. Check out others topping the radio charts by category and brand in the Toronto market for the week of November 20-26.
http://www.mediamonitors.com
Visa tries on m-couponing in local promo
Visa Canada has integrated a mobile OOH component in its Visa Perks ‘Win what you buy’ campaign. An SMS campaign that launched at Toronto’s Vaughan Mills mall earlier this month had eight retailers participating, including La Senza and Roots. Tent cards with a call to action invited shoppers to text in for a list of participating retailers, says Brian Chung, integration supervisor at Toronto-based Arc Worldwide, the agency behind the SMS project. Mobile users are then able to access m-coupons for use at the retailers. ‘Numbers are strong from the first week [we launched],’ says Chung of participation. Chung adds that Visa Canada will likely look at results from this pilot project as a means to decide whether to roll-out a retail mobile program nationally.
They put ads where? Machinima may entice brands
U.K.-based Lionhead Studios has created a software tool called ‘The Movies’ that lets gamers create computer-generated movies around their favourite video game characters for uploading to the Net. Marketers are tagging the movies, called machinima, as yet another medium for their message, with the most intrepid brands placing ads within them. Heavy.com boasts a machinima called Pimp my Weapon, which uses images from Sony game, God of War. Advertisers jumping on-board? Sony, of course, touting other game titles Socom 3 and Gun. Lionhead’s ‘The Movies’ allows the user to play Hollywood exec, managing all aspects of their shoot, from costume design to sets, with the wrap being uploaded to a Lionhead community site. Machinimas can also be sent to friends or posted online.
Publicis launches retail marketing division
Publicis Canada has launched Intersect, a newly-created division focusing on retail marketing, specifically on the development and implementation of OOH collateral, POP and packaging. Intersect will highlight the psychology and science of consumer buying habits to develop brand positioning. At the helm of the division is Carolyn Higgs, formerly of Maclaren McCann, where she spent more than five years on General Motors, Rogers wireless and cable business, among others.
