Faith station has new Vision
Visiontv has been taking stock and decided it needs a new outlook. While the Toronto-based faith and spirituality specialty is still not-for-profit, it has switched its focus to becoming a competitive broadcaster in the minds of media planners and buyers.
To that end, the net is putting an aggressive push on sales. It outsources its ad sales to Airtime Sales, of Toronto, but has now hired a consultant to work on sales and has more control over the function.
Sprite checks into the Habbo Hotel
Sprite has checked into the Habbo Hotel (www.habbohotel.ca) and set up its animated spokesdude Mr. Thirst to run the virtual hotel’s nightclub – now dubbed Club Thirst – for 26 weeks. The soft drink brand gets promotional billboard ads on the site’s main pages and within the nightclub as well as listings on the hotel’s navigation pages.
Habbo Hotel, a virtual online chat community, is targeted to 13- to 20-year-olds as a fun place to meet and interact with friends. Registered players choose to be represented in the action with a personalized figure called a Habbo. The hotel was launched last June by MuchMusic and CHUM Television Interactive in partnership with Sulake Canada, a subsidiary of Sulake Labs of Helsinki, Finland. It’s patrolled 24 hours a day by volunteer hotel guides supervised by Sulake Canada employees, and every conversation is filtered before it appears on the screen.
Within the nightclub – consisting of two lounges, the Lemon Lounge and the Lime Lounge – visitors can ask for a drink and they will get a Sprite-related reply such as: ‘May I offer you a Sprite?’ The next element of the sponsorship will have Mr. Thirst opening his virtual penthouse suite to Habbos and giving them a code word that can be redeemed for Habbo points. Habbo points allow players to do things like buy furniture for their personal suite or dive off the diving board at the hotel’s pool.
Many of MuchMusic’s teen-targeted promotions spill over to Habbo Hotel including those for another major presence on the site, Gillette, which is currently doing a promotion across all of the properties for TAG body spray for men.
Radio goes visual
A new form of media grabbed headlines at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas this week. HP and Infinity Broadcasting announced Monday that the two companies will work together to release Visual Radio, a service adding interactive content to radio via cellphones.
Montreal mag gets revamp
Just – Montreal’s City Magazine has launched its sixth issue with a multi-faceted revamp. Its readership used to be 18-35 with the book distributed free to over 600 points across the city, such as cafés and clothing stores targeting young professionals and trendsetters. The new reader profile is 25-49, even male and female skew, with average household income of over $150,000 and home value of $300,000 and higher.
Just is also launching its invitation-only Just1 program offering advertisers the possibility of sector exclusivity, based on 130 consumer products and services categories within the magazine.
The six-times-yearly pub has a control distrib of 25,000 with 5,000 to newsstand and the rest to affluent Montreal dwellings based on Transcontinental Group geo-demographic data in areas such as Outremont and Westmount. And the format has changed from 8.25′ x 8.25′ to 8 1/4′ x10 1/2′ to better accommodate advertisers.
Mobile Ad Council skeds first AGM & expands board
The Mobile Advertising Council of Canada (MACC) holds its first annual general meeting on May 12. It includes a panel entitled ‘Going Mobile: The View from All Sides.’ MACC has also added two members to its advisory board, Laura Gaggi, president of media shop Gaggi Media Communications, and Shelagh Morrison of 3M Canada. Gaggi’s client roster includes the Globe and Mail and The Discovery Channel, while Morrison is the marketing operations manager for the commercial graphics division of 3M Canada.
MACC is a non-profit organization formed to support and promote mobile advertising as a mainstream media choice in the out-of-home sector, and to develop methodology for audience measurement.
Advertisers look to get into the game
An audience of 250 executives, mostly from advertising agencies, attended the first annual Advertising in Games Forum on April 14, 2005 in New York City. Some of the data provided to attendees by such speakers as Mitch Davis, chief executive of video game ad network Massive and Yankee Group senior analyst Mike Goodman include:
* advertising in games is expected to rise to US$800 million in 2009 from nearly $120 million in 2004.
* US$266 million, or more than one-third of advertising in games in 2009, will come from ‘advergaming.’
* There are currently 100 million game-capable cellphones in the U.S. All mobiles being sold now are game-capable and the replacement rate of cellphones is every 16 months.
* 65% of the U.S. population owns a cellphone.
Goodman says while he has no specific figures on the Canadian market, percentage-wise the numbers should be similar for this country.
Spy Academy offers multiple ad opps
Chalk Media and YTV are preparing for season two of Spy Academy. The 13-part reality game show for tweens finished in the top 10 for Canadian programs on YTV last season. In one month, over 100,000 viewers tuned in, and became interested in the new concept. The targeted demographic is boys and girls aged 6-14. Producers noticed co-viewing of their series when families began watching on a weekly basis.
During the program, the Spy Academy Web site features live interactive games and contests. Advertisers can promote products on the show as prizes. Advertising costs range from $20, 000 up to $200,000 for exclusive video interactive components on TV and the Web site www.spyacademy.ca. (See MIC Aug. 24, 2004)
BBM Media Snapshot: Canadians and mortgage insurance
* 6 million Canadians (23%) have mortgage insurance.
* Of Canadians with mortgage insurance there is an equal split between women (51%) and men (49%).
* The top three age groups of people with mortgage insurance are 35 to 44 (33%), 25 to 34 (25%) and 45 to 54 at (24%).
* 26% of Quebecois have mortgage insurance. This is the highest compared to the national average of 23%. B.C. is the province with the lowest incidence of mortgage insurance with only 18%. All other regions are close to the national average.
* Mortgage insurance holders have an average household income of $60,000 compared to the national average of $53,000.
* People who have mortgage insurance are over twice as likely to have loss of employment insurance.
* 46% of people who have mortgage insurance watch home improvement shows on TV and 52% read home and gardening magazines.
* 72% of people who have mortgage insurance spent $1000 or more on home improvements in the past two years.
* The top three media for yesterday’s exposure for people who have mortgage insurance are television (90%), radio (89%) and the Internet (57%).
Source: BBM RTS Canada Fall ’03 / Spring ’04
The preceding information is from BBM RTS, a syndicated consumer-media survey of over 55,000 Canadians, conducted twice a year by BBM Canada. For more information contact Craig Dorning of BBM Canada: cdorning@bbm.ca.
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.
