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April 1, 2008
CAB’s Thompson: Bullish on Cable
Consumer confidence is down. Housing prices are falling and foreclosures continue to rise. U.S. car manufacturers have been suffering a reduction in sales for months. Companies, including General Motors -- the nation’s third largest advertiser -- are shifting a significant amount of their advertising budgets toward the Internet and away from other traditional media.
Advertising agency giant M&C Saatchi is expecting a challenging 2008 in the U.S. It could be a difficult year for cable advertising, including local spot. But Chuck Thompson, executive VP for the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, believes this is a great time to buy cable advertising and isn’t convinced ad sales will suffer this year.
“Any time there is a weak or slow economy; advertisers need to make sure they don’t let their advertising slip,” Thompson said. “If it goes down, you never really gain it back. Those companies that don’t invest in their brands in down times suffer more than companies that continue to advertise and market their brands and products.” For more...
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Great Ideas
SEE SPOT RUN: Spot Runner has launched a political advertising program for candidates around the country running for election in local, state and national campaigns. “Spot Runner is helping to further democratize the election process by leveling the playing field for all candidates. It’s giving every campaign an equal opportunity to broadcast important messages to the most appropriate audiences,” said former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ), a member of Spot Runner’s Political Advisory Board, in a prepared statement. According to the American Association of Political Consultants, there are more than 500,000 elections held in the U.S. each year. The vast majority of candidates will not be able to hire a media consultant. Historically, one
of the biggest barriers preventing candidates from advertising on TV is the expense of producing an ad. Spot Runner has created an extensive library of pre-produced political commercials that span a variety of issues; each ad is personalized with the campaign’s images and messages and a new voiceover. Ads also can be turned around in 24-to-48 hours, allowing campaigns to react immediately to local or competitive issues. For completely customized ads, candidates can provide their own footage or leverage Spot Runner’s creative team. Fully customized ads typically run $499-$2,000 (media costs are separate). The most popular categories of ads thus far have been about leadership, education, taxes and get-out-the-vote. The program also uses Spot Runner’s Geo-Voter Targeting
process, which combines political district maps with local television targeting opportunities, voter and donor data, and detailed demographic and psychographic data relevant to candidates’ campaigns. Spot Runner’s Political Advisory Board includes Bradley as well as veteran Republican strategists Mike Murphy and Dan Schnur as well as Democratic consultant Bob Shrum, and cable networks.
MAKING LOCAL FOCAL: Ryan Arnold, of Chicago-based ad agency Arnold Creative, encourages clients to buy local cable spots despite a drop in cable penetration. Although the price of local cable spots may be less than broadcast spots, he tells clients that doesn’t mean they should run cheap ads. “Spend the money to create a decent quality commercial,” he said in a recent blog. Anything less screams a lack of belief and support for the product or service the client is selling. He also suggests allocating an adequate budget. Rule of thumb for retailers, for instance, is 5%-8% of last year’s annual gross sales as a starting point for sales and marketing. “Whether it’s $5,000 or $50,000, the point is you must establish a
number and stick with it,” Arnold said in his blog, theadguy.blogspot.com
KEEPING IT FRESH: Charter Communications’ uses its programming to motivate its advertising executives, according to Jim Heneghan, Charter’s senior VP of advertising sales. “While our competitors in newspaper and radio offer little in new opportunities, ad-insertable cable keeps bringing great, original programming to our advertising customers,” Heneghan said. “Advanced advertising opportunities like on-demand keep the ‘fresh’ in our product offerings. Contests, promotions -- keep the teams excited and great actions, and results, follow.” Heneghan also encourages his staff to sell schedules, not spots. He also stresses the need to fulfill clients’ needs. “Clients need solutions -- so don’t
‘feature and benefit’ dump like other media reps often do. Understand the clients’ needs and build media solutions using cable’s wide range of programming and product options,” Heneghan stresses to Charter’s sales staff.
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Sharing the Data
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Jim Heneghan
Senior VP, advertising sales
Charter Communications |
Charter Communications has agreed to sell information it collects about the viewing preferences of 330,000 of its Los Angeles area customers to Nielsen Co. Nielsen will market the reports to ad agencies and advertisers, with Charter earning a cut from their sale. Charter is already supplying similar information to TNS. Although some privacy groups have concerns about the deals, Charter executives have stressed that the MSO will only provide data in an anonymous form to prevent Nielsen from identifying the personal information or identity of any individual Charter customer. Similarly, all Nielsen reports will contain only anonymous and aggregated data: It’s the first time that census-level tuning data and panel-based people meter viewing data will be combined to produce expanded
household and demographic reporting from a local television market. Charter senior VP of advertising sales Jim Heneghan discussed the deal and how Charter’s local ad sales staff will be able to use the information to sell local schedules. Advertisers are demanding more specific information from TV programmers to match the type of click-stream data available on Internet advertising, Heneghan said. For more...
--Interviewed by K.C. Neel
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Bresnan Inserts More Ad Capabilities
(Excerpted from a March 26 article on Multichannel.com)
Bresnan Communications has purchased AdGorilla’s Rev-Gen ad server units to help the MSO expand its hardware as its customer base grows. AdGorilla specializes in modular ad insertion equipment, designed to require minimal initial capital investment or headend space. The Rev-Gen system, for example, starts at $5,000.
For More…Hallmark Eyes $250 Million In 2008 Ad Sales
(Excerpted from a March 25 article on Multichannel.com)
Hallmark Channel is expecting a 20% run-up in ad sales in 2008 totaling a whopping $250 million. Encouraged by its lift in rating and the growing buying power of its main audience -- Baby Boomers -- Hallmark is confident this year’s upfront will be stronger than a year ago. Dave Kenin, executive vice president of programming of Hallmark Channel parent Crown Media, said that in 2007 the network notched its best-ever week, month and quarter, as Hallmark rang out Q4 2007 in sixth place, among ad-supported cable networks. The numbers have continued to improve with record-breaking months in January and February, and a similar trend afoot for March. All of which will lead to network’s highest-ever first quarter ever and seventh place, relative to household ratings,
among 69 measured cable services. With several days until the first quater concludes, Hallmark officials said the network projects to finish with a 1.2 household rating average in primetime and a 0.7 in total-day, good for 10th.
For More…Cable Ads Post Modest Gains In 2007
(Excerpted from a March 25 article on Multichannel.com)
Cable ended the 2007 calendar year growing its ad sales business by 6.5 %, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Only cable and Spanish language TV, with a year-over-year growth rate of 1.3%, posted gains for the year, according to the year-end compilation. By comparison, network TV was down 2% and spot TV was down 10.2%, while advertising on nationally syndicated fare was down 1.5%. After digging deeper into last year’s figures, TNS found that among the 45 cable networks monitored by TNS, programmers are now taking spots that in the past have been used in-house for promotion and are selling them to direct marketers, therefore monetizing time that previously raised no ad revenue. TNS estimates that cable TV finished 2007 with $17.84 billion in ad sales.
For More…Rentrak Inks On-Demand Measurement Deal With Turner
(Excerpted from a March 19 article on Multichannel.com)
Rentrak has won a multi-year deal with Turner Broadcasting System to track on-demand viewing for all eight of the programmer’s services, namely Cartoon Network, CNN, TBS, TNT, TCM, TruTV, Boomerang and Adult Swim. Rentrak entered into an expanded agreement with Time Warner Cable, which like Turner is a unit of Time Warner. Turner’s networks have widespread distribution across various cable operators, so the addition of their video on-demand usage will enhance Rentrak’s capacity to provide timely, aggregated and customizable analysis of anonymous census-level, on-demand viewing data, the tracking company contends. Rentrak’s roster of content providers now totals more than 90, including studios and cable, broadcast and on demand-only networks.
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The Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which tussled with Comcast Corp. last year over broadcasting rights to the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals games, is back in court claiming the MSO is threatening to block the network from running regional ads, according to the Annapolis Daily Record. MASN, which won the broadcasting rights to both Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals games in 2006 after a legal battle with Comcast Corp., claims Comcast is threatening to block the network from running regional advertisements. MASN’s complaint claims that if Comcast can prevent the network from selling ads on those games will cause it “irreparable harm,” according to the complaint filed last month in Baltifmore City Circuit Court. MASN,
owned almost entirely by the Orioles and partially by the Nationals, wants a temporary restraining order and a permanent injunction against Comcast, enabling MASN to continue running its regional advertising.
For More…
CNN and MSNBC wrapped up record first quarters last month, thanks largely to Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, according to Advertising Age. Record ratings have led to major ad-sales growth, and Ad Age expects both networks to ride that wave until the national convention in August. But the picture gets cloudy going into this year's upfront sales period, when the networks will be selling inventory for fourth quarter and beyond. A recent MediaVest study polling 1,174 registered voters during a five-day period found the left end of the viewing audience is consuming cable news in higher numbers during this presidential primary season. (Registration required)
For More…
Ad Week reported that spending on alternative media rose 22% to $73.4 billion in 2007 and is forecast to grow another 20% to more than $88 billion in 2008 despite a sluggish economy, according to new research released by PQ Media. Alternative media, including 18 digital and nontraditional media segments, accounted for 16% of total advertising and marketing spending in 2007, up from nearly 8% in 2002. But by 2012, it is forecast to represent about 27% of total U.S. advertising and marketing spend, PQ Media said. The largest alternative media segments in 2007 were event sponsorships and marketing, search and lead generation, e-direct marketing, online classifieds and displays, local pay TV and product placement. "By 2012, we anticipate one out of every $4
spent on advertising and marketing will be earmarked for alternative media," PQ Media president/CEO Patrick Quinn said in a prepared statement. "Technological advances have led to critical changes in consumer behaviors and media-usage patterns, which have pushed the advertising and marketing ecosystems into a seminal period of transition. Driven by these market forces, brand marketers are seeking new strategies to connect with consumers through engaging means in captive locations while at the same time providing proof-of-performance metrics. This confluence of trends is fueling the migration of dollars to alternative media."
For More…
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Lifetime tapped Debbie Richman, formerly a buyer for OMD, to head its ad sales division as executive VP. She replaces Lynn Picard, who left the network as president of ad sales last year after 13 years with the network.
Karen Watson was promoted to chief communications officer and senior VP of global communications for Nielsen Co. She had been senior VP of communications for Nielsen Media Research.
Comcast’s Northern New England Region has elevated Mark Adamy to VP of sales and marketing, from senior director.
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Correction Spot Runner was misspelled in the April 18 issue of Multichannel News’ Local Cable Ad Sales newsletter.
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EDITOR:
George Vernadakis
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