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DDB/Republik alliance nabs Mountain Equipment Co-op
Outdoor equipment retailer and manufacturer Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) has given its account to a new alliance of two agencies, DDB Vancouver and Republik. Republik will work with DDB and its divisions, and will also oversee Quebec initiatives (MEC puts a special focus on that market.)
This is the first time DDB and Republik have joined forces. They beat out Graphème Koo, Grey Northwest, RMG Connect and Manifest Communications for the business.
History documents D-Day
History Television will air a four-part collection of D-Day documentaries and films in June to mark the 61st anniversary of the WWII event. The series begins Monday, June 6 at 9 p.m. with D-Day in Colour, followed by D-Day on Juno Beach at 10 p.m. Line of Fire: Battle of Normandy will start at 9 p.m., Tuesday, June 7, followed by Raid Of Dieppe at 10 p.m. On Wednesday, June 8, at 10 p.m., Come Out Fighting: The 761st will be broadcast. D-Day: Men and Machines will complete the series at 9 p.m. on Thursday.
Also in June, History Television has two multi-part specials: Airships, and Shining Mountains. Airships will consist of three one-hour episodes airing Tuesdays at 8 p.m., starting June 7 and concluding on the 21st. This series will chronicle the role airships played in aviation history. Finally, History has the broadcast premiere of Shining Mountains beginning Monday, June 13 at 9 p.m. Shining Mountains is a four-parter about the history of the Rocky Mountains.
New post for ex Pattison prez
Glenn McConnell, former president of Pattison Outdoor Group, has joined Vauntcom Media, of Calgary, as SVP national advertising and business development. Vauntcom operates LCD and plasma display screens. McConnell will lead the Toronto office and Ontario operations in addition to securing national advertisers and working with media buyers.
Event
May 19
Broadcast Audience Measurement Research: New Techniques and Technologies
Intercontinental Hotel, Toronto
416-413-3882
http://www.carf.ca
Measuring New Technology: Mike Leahy, president, Nielsen Media Research Canada, will discuss the impact of new consumer electronics technology, the impact on TV use and measurement, and how the company plans to deal with the burgeoning digital environment.
PPM Update: Pat Pellegrini, VP research, BBM Canada, will bring the industry up to date on the PPM and its measurement of French-language TV and radio audiences, single-source radio audiences, and compare PPM measurement with diary data from the spring and fall surveys.
PMB Factoid
Females are 18% more likely to shop at a drug store 5+ times per month.
Fantasy Sports net seeks sponsors for mobile effort
Online game environment Fantasy Sports Network is going mobile. In its current online incarnation, the site garners about 100,000 unique visitors a month who pay to play fantasy hockey, golf and other games. Now Toronto-based FSN is turning its sights to mobile.
GM Steve Hulford sees cellphones as a great medium for such features as polls, trivia and letting people see how they rank. Within the, say, 20,000 people playing, a group of 20 friends can form a league and Hulford is hoping they will use SMS to ‘trash talk’ each other, saying things like: ‘I passed you in the golf pool last night.’ FSN is partnering with Toronto-based mobile game development company Magnet Mobile in the initiative and is looking for a major sponsor in the telecommunications space to help get things ramped up for a summer go.
Advertisers hitting the Sweetspot
Sweetspot.ca, a localized Toronto e-mail newsletter and Web site (see MIC, Dec. 2/04) has just expanded into Montreal this month and has plans to invade Vancouver in late May or early June. The publication focuses on shopping finds of interest to upscale urbanites and those who would like to be.
There are now 5,000 subscribers to the e-mail, double the 2,500 it had when MIC interviewed the co. in early December. Visits to the site are holding steady (at 10,000 per week). But ‘that’s considered secondary,’ says founder Joanna Track, an Ogilvy account-side alum. ‘We mainly sell the e-mail. The newsletter’s pass-along factor is up to 25% that Sweetspot can track (those passed along using an embedded forward function), but, says Track: ‘A lot of people just press their [regular] forward button so we can’t track that.’ She says most days they see 10% to 25% pass-along.
Marketers have been hitching their wagons to the star in growing numbers and one must admit the target demo is an advertiser’s dream: primary 25-40, secondary 18-24, with a strong female skew (88%.) Forty per cent claim a $75,000+ income. Track says the newsletter acts as a great filter, with one story a day, on one topic. ‘It’s a very easy read and very digestible,’ she says. ‘Because we keep it short (200 words max,) a person can be in and out and we’re not intrusive.’
Franco site distills home coverage from dailies
Cyberpresse launched a new Web site on Tuesday focusing on everything around the house: dwelling, gardening, renovation and decoration. The site, www.montoit.ca, is in French and derives its content from seven French-language publications, Cyberpresse partners La Presse, Le Soleil, Le Nouvelliste, Le Droit, La Tribune, Le Quotidien/Progrès-Dimanche and La Voix de l’Est.
Montoit.ca is targeting current and potential home and condo owners 25-49. It is expected that the gardening and decoration sections will attract more women while the dwelling and renovation sections will interest more men. Advertising is available on the site. Current participants include Hydro-Québec, CIBC, Bell, Honda and CAA Québec.
Lavalife sponsors text messaging on Speakers Corner
Online meeting service Lavalife has clicked with Citytv’s Speakers Corner, sponsoring the show’s on-screen SMS text messaging component. The program invites viewers with cellphones to send messages during the show, with texts appearing in near real-time. Lavalife’s sponsorship, newly launched on April 9 for four weeks, sees the brand’s call-to-action embedded within a return path message when viewers submit a text during Speakers Corner.
‘It works because most of the messages coming in are about relationships or to send shout-outs to loved ones or people looking for each other. It’s a unique opportunity as they have a mobile product,’ says CHUM’s manager of interactive business development, Richard Kanee. He adds: ‘We have seen response rates on text message offerings as high as 10% and more [when people respond to offers embedded in a return path message.]’ As the current mobile sponsor, Lavalife’s logo appears five times in the flow of messages throughout the program. With up to 200 texts (and growing) received during the half-hour show, CHUM Interactive plans to add more SMS to other programs in the future.
MMA debuts fully integrated marketing ROI service
Wilton, Conn.-based Marketing Management Analytics (MMA) today announced the limited release of Avista by MMA Decision Support Service (Avista DSS). It’s a fully integrated, Web-based system available through an ordinary browser by subscription. It offers real-time analytics, ‘what-if’ planning, optimization, portfolio management and benchmarking capabilities. The system can track and diagnose performance, manage portfolios of brands, capture all marketing history, including performance data, in one location, forecast results, create dashboard views of key performance metrics and create marketing mix models.
The brains behind the system are an integrated database of real-time company and syndicated data, MMA’s proprietary models, and marketing experience based on more than 1,000 studies conducted by MMA on hundreds of brands and businesses in more than 20 countries. MMA is an independent operating unit of Carat.
New avenues developing for cellphone advertising
Design firm Loopmedia and animation producer theskonkworks, both of Toronto, have joined forces to create The Animation Incubator. The joint venture will develop ‘mobisodes,’ animated Web movies and games created for the mobile wireless market, replete with advertising opportunities within the mobile content. Company president and co-founder Sonja Perovic says: ‘We are targeting kids and teens who are really into the new technologies with text messaging.’
The alliance is launching its project at the MIP-TV television market taking place this week in Cannes.
Loopmedia and theskonkworks will offer creative services to companies who want to embed ads. The venture wants to brand series of mobisodes appealing to the demographic that use instant messaging. ‘The goal for campaigns is to find brands that will complement each other for cross promotions. We want to create high quality product – with both companies splitting the cost of advertising, they can get more bang for their buck,’ Perovic explains.
http://www.loopmedia.com
http://www.theskonkworks.com
Voix deal dead
Longueuil, Que.-based Section Rouge Media and Prestige Media have ‘annulled’ the acquisition of the gay and lesbian mag La voix du Village (see MIC March 29/05) by Rouge. In a release, the parties cited ‘an irreconcilable difference’ regarding the pub’s management. There will be no cost to either party due to the annulment.
The free two-year-old magazine has a distribution of 30,000.
ComBase Market Focus: Gander, Nfld.
More than three-quarters of the adults in Gander are community newspaper readers.
* 76% report reading any community newspaper (weekday or weekend) compared to 41% who report reading any daily newspapers (weekday or weekend).
* 38% of adults are exclusive community newspaper readers and only read the community paper, not the daily newspaper.
* Exclusive Gander community newspaper readers tend to be women aged 18 to 24. They are more likely to be married or living with a partner, and homeowners.
When it comes to other media in Gander:
* 28% of adults admit they didn’t listen to any radio yesterday.
* 26% report listening to non-commercial CBC stations.
* 39% of adults report watching less than 9.5 hours of television in the past week, which is less than an hour and a half a day.
Source: ComBase 2003-2004 Study
ComBase, the Community Newspaper Database, is a syndicated consumer-media survey of more than 400 Canadian markets that provides market-by-market information. It is an initiative of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association and its nearly 700 members across the country. For more information, contact Kelly Levson, senior project manager, kellylevson@combase.ca.
History docs examine torture
The History Channel will air the controversial three-part series Torture.The series from Britain’s Channel 4 will broadcast three journalistic documentaries.
Part one, The Guantanamo Guidebook, airing Monday, April 25 at 9 p.m., follows volunteers who submit themselves to the methods of interrogation used at the Americans’ Cuban base camp. Torture: America’s Brutal Prisons, airing Tuesday, April 26 at 9:00 p.m., investigates the prison system in Abu Ghraib, paralleling current situations in the American prison system. Meanwhile, the final instalment, Torture: The Dirty Business will premier Wednesday, April 27 at 9 p.m. Investigative journalist Andrew Gilligan will look into the practice of torture techniques on terrorist suspects.
