Food net delivers parties, travel and food with two new series
Food Network is bringing high-roller parties and tasty travel eats to a TV set near you. Behind the Bash airs on Mondays at 9 p.m. starting January 2. The series shows viewers how to create the perfect, over-the-top party. Rachel Ray’s Tasty Travels makes its Canuck debut on Tuesday, Jan. 3 at 8:30 p.m. Travel guru Rachel Ray shares insider tips and travel secrets from around the world.
HGTV picks up four
Specialty net HGTV has picked up series from the U.S. and from across the pond. American buys include: My First Place, a show covering first-home design challenges, airing Mondays at 8:30 p.m. beginning Jan. 2; Small Space, Big Style, which addresses making the most of lesser spaces, begins airing on Tuesday, Jan. 3 at 7:30 p.m.; and Generation Renovation, which airs weekly beginning Thursday, Jan. 5 at 7:30 p.m. is about homeowners who renovate their older homes. All are half-hour shows. The British, hour-long How Not to Decorate, which originally aired on BBC Canada, makes its network premiere on Tuesday, Jan. 3 at 9 p.m.
National Geographic to air Mafia series
National Geographic is going Inside the Mafia. The four-part, hour-long series infiltrates mob land and weaves interviews with mobsters and law enforcement folks alike. Back-to-back episodes will air on Sunday, Dec. 4 at 6 p.m. and again, weekly, on Mondays at 8 p.m. beginning Dec. 5.
BBC Canada nets three in January
Imagine being able to ‘try out’ your new home before you buy it. For the house hunters in new half-hour series, To Buy or Not to Buy, it’s a reality. BBC Canada will air the series on Thursdays at 5 p.m., beginning Jan. 5. Also new to the net is half hour series I’m Alan Partridge about a radio guy working the graveyard shift. It airs beginning Tuesday, Jan. 17 at 9:40 p.m. Using questionable methods and tactics, the crime fighters of the murder prevention unit will have their techniques investigated in a one-hour series called Murder Prevention beginning Wednesday, Jan.18, at 10 p.m.
Space to show Shadow Hunter
The new 13 part half-hour doc series Shadow Hunter is set to air weekly on Space beginning Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 10 p.m. The show will investigate the mysteries of such phenomena as UFOs, witchcraft and communicating with the dead.
Fine Living series provides tips about survival and money
Specialty net Fine Living is hoping to help viewers with New Year’s resolutions with two new series. Living through a plane crash and then dodging jungle animals is one thing to survive, but dinner with the in-laws is an entirely different story. The half-hour series Survival Guide will use experts to teach the proper etiquette for dining out, attending wedding receptions and many more of life’s grueling events each Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 5 p.m. beginning January 2. The new consumer education series Pocket the Difference teaches how to get the best quality products for the least amount of money. Premiering January 2, the half hour show will air Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 1:30 p.m.
Brand Canada deploys offbeat media
Canada is looking for some company and is inviting the rest of the world to drop by for a visit. The Canadian Tourism Commission’s (CTC) Brand Canada ad campaign, complete with tag line ‘Canada. Keep exploring,’ was unveiled in London, England yesterday. The mandate? To get on potential visitors’ radars through innovative media placement.
‘We want to get the message across in the course of their daily lives,’ explains Steve Wright, strategic planner at DDB Canada, the agency behind the campaign. ‘We want to get on people’s shopping lists.’
As such, bagel and bread bags, coffee sleeves, branded smart cars and, oh yes, even instructional diagrams on health clubs’ weight machines will be sporting the Brand Canada maple leaf in various European markets such as the U.K., France and Germany. Other campaign executions include superboards, public bus wraps and 3-D posters (depicting a stroll through Old Quebec City for example). All this in addition to traditional radio and print buys.
‘There’s no point in our providing ad number 22 in a block of 85 ads within a travel magazine. The point is to get outside of traditional travel media,’ says Wright.
Metro to wear glama for Rogers Wireless campaign
Metro will be wearing a raincoat today. As part of its holiday ad campaign, the free daily will be wrapped in a six-page ad printed on layers of transparent paper called glama, enticing readers to peel back the ad messages like an onion skin. Street promoters sporting Rogers hats will also be distributing more than 50,000 copies of the daily today in Metro’s four markets – Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver. Creative was handled by Toronto-based Publicis with media buying managed by Media Buying Services.
Xbox checks into Habbo
Xbox Canada has checked in for a nine-week stay at virtual teen hangout Habbo Hotel Canada. The Xbox 360 Lounge boasts a branded environment and brand reps with pre-programmed shout-outs such as: ‘What’s your gamer tag? Meet me on Xbox live.’ The hotel rendez-vous is in support of the launch of the gaming company’s newest platform called the 360. Future plans include an Xbox 360 challenge and a virtual Xbox 360 launch party within the hotel. M2 Universal played matchmaker.
Top TV advertisers: Eloda ad analysis
Looks like the retail and entertainment categories are starting their holiday promo push, clocking in at the number one and number two spots respectively for the top categories with the largest variety of TV ads last week. Meanwhile, dethroning last year’s top brand advertiser, P&G, is Sony Pictures, number one this year in the race for the largest variety of TV ads for the first week of November. Check out others topping the charts, and which brands had the most new spots and new advertisers. 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
Yahoo! Music Canada adds streaming video and audio spot capability
Yahoo! Canada has just launched the ability for marketers to place audio/video streaming ads on its music channel. Fifteen- or 30-second audio or video spots can now run as tags attached to an mp3 file or a music video available for download on the site. ‘Marketers [can also] get ad placements beside and under the video and audio players,’ explains Simon D. Jennings, sales director at Yahoo! Canada. He adds that the site has the ability to target specifics such as gender and can also target listeners of a specific genre. Costs for audio and video streaming ads are based on a $30-60 CPM, depending on targeting filters.
In addition, marketers also have the opportunity to sponsor content on Yahoo! Music Canada. On the U.S. site, snack brand Doritos owns the ‘dig it or diss it’ feature, where visitors rate songs and videos. Yahoo! is hoping to replicate a similar feature here. Says Jennings: ‘A marketer or media buyer can cross-buy across our platform so that they can compare and leverage learnings and make adjustments at any time in the campaign.’ According to numbers from comScore Media Metrix, Yahoo! Music Canada’s uniques grew by 301% between May-September 2005. In September, the site logged 850,000 unique visitors.
Milk stars in a dramatic daily series for Quebec ad campaign
Dramatic milk. Who would have known? BBDO Montreal has just wrapped up a month-long campaign casting milk in a photo-novel ad campaign for La Fédération des producteurs de lait du Québec. Part of its ‘deux c’est mieux’ campaign, this initiative sees milk star in a series of 20 vignettes, each a scene in a photo novel unveiled daily in the free daily, Metro. Nicole Dubé, marketing director for La Fédération des producteurs de lait du Québec says they have also created a postcard booklet containing 10 of the best vignettes, which was distributed as an insert in the Metro last week.
Results suggest Quebeckers embraced the photo novel effort. As an extension of the campaign, visitors were able log in to deuxcestmieux.com and click on an image to send a message to a loved one.
‘We got more than 6000 visitors to the site in the last month [during the campaign],’ says Dubé. ‘And, according to A.C. Nielsen, milk consumption has grown 2% in Quebec every year for the last three years.’
AOL to stream live concert events; offers future ad opps
AOL.ca is bringing Madonna to a PC near you, the first of many such multimedia extravaganzas. At 5 p.m. ET today, the Material Girl will perform live from London in an international album launch event – and millions of music fans will have live access by logging into www.aol.live and www.aol.qc.ca/endirect. AOL.ca hosts the performance for Network LIVE, which is a venture between AOL, XM Satellite Radio and AEG. This is the first international production and broadcast for Network LIVE since last summer’s Live 8 event. Meanwhile, MuchMusic will also broadcast the performance via mobile phone to subscribers of mobiTV.
Ryan Trotman, senior manager, portal and channel management for AOL.ca says: ‘We expect the same type of enthusiasm and viewership as we saw with the Live 8 Webcast this summer, [which] delivered above 1 million ad impressions. We’re working with our AOL counterparts globally for assets to exclusive, live and on-demand events and are ramping up our schedules now for future events.’ Sponsors for the Madonna broadcast were not named.
BBM Media Snapshot: Who shops at La Senza?
* 7 million Canadians (25%) shopped at La Senza last year.
* Almost one-third (31%) of La Senza shoppers are males.
* 23% of La Senza shoppers are teens (2.5 times the national avg.) and 18% are between 18 and 24 years old.
* 43% are single (1.6 times the national average).
* Compared to the national averages, they are:
o 1.8 times more likely to practice aerobics.
o 1.7 times more likely to go jogging.
o 1.7 times more likely to do pilates/yoga.
* La Senza shoppers are also heavy users of esthetic services. Compared to the Canadian average, they went/used:
o 2 times more to tanning salons.
o 2 times more waxing services.
o 1.8 times more facial/cosmetic services.
* 32% of La Senza shoppers used gift certificates last month (above average).
* The top three media for yesterday exposure against La Senza shoppers are: TV (91%), radio (90%), and Internet (63%).
* Mainstream top 40/CHR (16%, 1.6 times the national average), hot adult contemporary (12%, 1.5 times the national average), and adult contemporary (12%) are their top three favorite formats (radio weekly reach).
Source: BBM RTS Canada Fall ’04 / Spring ’05, 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.
