Daily Buzz 3-20-12
Nascar Seeks Agency to Help Attract Youth, Multicultural Fan Base
Nascar is planning to launch an agency review as it seeks a shop that can help increase its fan base among youth and multicultural audiences, Ad Age has learned.
The review follows the arrival last fall of Kim Brink, Nascar’s managing director-brand, consumer and series marketing, who previously spent time at Cadillac.
Ms. Brink told Ad Age that the incumbent, St. Louis-based Jump Co., which has worked with Nascar since 2005, will be invited to participate. Jump will face off against three or four other shops.
Jump will likely face an uphill battle, as Nascar looks for a full-service agency with experience in youth, multicultural (with a focus on the Hispanic market), and digital marketing, as well as media planning and events and promotions capabilities. The ideal agency will also have sports experience, a passion for Nascar specifically, and demonstrated success in leading a transformation of a similar organization, Ms. Brink said. (www.adage.com)
Nothing But Net: March Madness a Winning Investment
Advertisers are putting up big dollars to grab a piece of March Madness, and while the cover charge may be steep, it appears that the spring hoops showcase is well worth the price of entry.
Marketers will pony up nearly $1.5 million dollars for a spot in the final game of the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship—money that’s well spent, according to the media measurement software and analytics company TRA, Inc.
Automakers are a particularly good fit for March Madness, said Mark Lieberman, co-founder and CEO of TRA. For example, Infiniti owners were found to be twice as likely to watch the tourney than viewers who drove other brands. Acura viewers also overindexed in the tournament, by a two-to-one ratio.
TRA pulls its viewing and purchasing data from a database of 370,000 households. Forty-five major brands make allocation decisions based on the TRA data.
That car manufacturers are well suited to March Madness happily coincides with the buying power of the category. Per Kantar Media estimates, automotive accounted for $155.9 million of last year’s NCAA tourney spend, or 21 percent of the $738 million in ad revenue shared by CBS and Turner Sports. (www.adweek.com)
Who Does What: Health Insurance Companies
While much has been said on how health care reform will impact sponsorship activity in the health insurance category, most players continue to use the medium to accomplish two primary objectives: Promote health and wellness and community involvement. And companies are increasingly signing new deals to promote those objectives. Case in point: Humana, Inc. earlier this year kicked off its multiyear title of the Humana Challenge PGA Tour golf tournament. (www.sponsorship.com)
Outdoor Industries Women’s Coalition (OIWC) Announces New Partnership With Industry Leaders
OIWC is proud to announce the first annual sponsorship of its Education Series, an annual series of professional development events for women in the outdoor industries. GORE-TEX, adidas Outdoor, CamelBak and REI will be supporting every Education Series event throughout 2012, providing education to thousands of women across the outdoor, snow and bike industries.
Yvonne Erickson, Gore Marketing Leader said, “The GORE-TEX brand is proud to support the 2012 Outdoor Industries Women’s Coalition Education Series. Whether there’s an adventure or a job to be done, at Gore we believe in respect, inclusion, and equality in the outdoor industry.”
OIWC will deliver events in April, June and October to members across the country. Each event will include a keynote presentation by a relevant speaker. The education series will kick off with April events in Seattle and the Bay Area, with speakers sharing their thoughts on “How to be Effective in Change, Both Personal and Organizational.” Both events are free for OIWC members, $20 for non-OIWC members. (www.sponsorship.com)
Old Habits Do Die: Sponsor Survey Sees Less Reliance on Ads, Signage
The 12th annual IEG/Performance Research Sponsorship Decision-makers Survey indicates that sponsors are letting go of some of the more traditional and less engaging ways to communicate and evaluate their partnerships. In terms of activation, traditional advertising was used far less as a leveraging tool than in any previous year. Although 72 percent of sponsors still buy media to activate, that figure is a long way from the high of 86 percent in 2005. (www.sponsorship.com)
Kingsford Cooks Up New Sponsorships
These are busy times for The Clorox Co.’s Kingsford brand. The iconic charcoal brand has expanded its four-year-old music initiative with presenting sponsorship of the Country Throwdown music tour. The 17-stop tour kicks off May 18 and runs through July 1. The sponsorship marks new ground for Kingsford, which previously sponsored tours by the Zac Brown Band and other major country acts. (www.sponsorship.com)
The world’s biggest consumer products company isn’t above looking for some outside help.
Procter & Gamble Co. has been licensing out hundreds of undeveloped patents, brands and rights to new products as it tries to turn around some languishing businesses and extend successful ones. The little-known practice includes brands such as Febreze, Pampers Kandoo, Mr. Clean and others.
P&G ramped up its licensing efforts—often partnering with smaller companies—after discovering that the side business had been generating significant revenue. P&G says it didn’t even calculate how much its external partners were bringing in from P&G products until three years ago. (www.wsj.com)
Major League Soccer (MLS) team FC Dallas has agreed a two-year sponsorship deal with TXU Energy.
According to the Dallas Business Journal, the partnership will allow TXU to promote its services at the team’s home games, as well as at soccer coaching clinics and other FC Dallas events. The deal also extends to the Texas State Soccer Association, for whom FC Dallas markets sponsorship rights. It does not include electricity services as the club’s home ground, FC Dallas Stadium, is in a regulated area of the Texas grid where it is not possible to select individual providers, but there will be an emphasis on the environment and energy conservation.
Donna Egen, the manager of promotions and brand management for TXU, said: “The beautiful thing about soccer and FC Dallas is they’ve got such a terrifically diverse audience. We want to be able to talk to the Texas electricity customers that are out there, and build brand awareness of that group.” (www.sportspromedia.com)
AOL To Debut New Campaign Platform
Investing further in ad services, AOL is expected to debut a centralized platform for campaign optimization, expansion, and real-time bidding capabilities Tuesday.
The AdLearn Open Platform (AOP) — an extension of Advertising.com’s current AdLearn technology — is, in part, AOL’s answer to the rise of real-time marketplaces.
“With AOP, we are providing advertisers and agencies access to the power of our platform … as the industry evolves to real-time marketplaces,” said Ned Brody, Chief Revenue Officer at AOL.
Using the new platform, marketers can centrally manage campaigns across what Brody calls the largest market of real-time bidding inventory available, including all major RTB exchanges, as well as bidded access to AOL, Huffington Post and Ad.com’s inventory. It also includes inventory from the recently announced display ad agreement between AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo. (www.mediapost.com)
Michigan Launches $12 Million Effort
Michigan is launching a $12 million national ad campaign. It is the most the state has ever spent to promote the Great Lakes state as a tourism destination.
Creative continues the “Pure Michigan” theme that was launched in 2006.
TV will air nationally more than 5,000 times combined on A&E, ABC Family, Animal Planet, Bravo, CMT, CNN, the Cooking Channel, E!, Food Network, Fox News, the Golf Channel, HGTV, Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network, MSNBC, Nick at Nite, OWN, the Outdoor Channel, Oxygen, Style, The Learning Channel (TLC), the Travel Channel, USA, WE and The Weather Channel.
The national cable for spring/summer 2012 runs through June. This year, four private sector partners – Ann Arbor, Mackinac Island, The Henry Ford and Traverse City – are contributing $500,000 a piece for a combined $2 million toward the national advertising campaign as part of the Travel Michigan Partnership Advertising Program. (www.mediapost.com)
Dos Equis Works At Staying ‘Most Interesting’
Dos Equis’s beloved “Most Interesting Man” (MIM) is busy this spring.
First, building on its “Legendary Lines” Facebook app, where myriad Dos Equis fans daily post their own witty lines about the MIM (and are rewarded by the brand), Dos Equis is now running a “Most Interesting March Tournament.”
Fans submitted their own MIM lines for tournament spots for a chance to appear in one of the brand’s ads. Dos Equis is now selecting the wittiest 64 lines; their creators will pick brackets in which to compete in a digital tournament. Those chosen will need to rally fan support each time their lines compete, in order to make it into the finals on April 2.
Dos Equis’s Facebook page currently shows 1.96 million “likes.” (www.mediapost.com)
L’Oreal, Lauren Team Up For Big Pony Launch
L’Oreal is rolling out Ralph Lauren’s Big Pony Collection for Women in the U.S., using an exclusive song from pop band OneRepublic. Called “Life in Color,” the song is featured in TV ads and a two-minute film, shot by famed fashion photographer Bruce Weber, as well as digital applications supporting the launch.
Like the men’s line of Big Pony fragrances, launched to much fanfare back in 2010, the women’s collection also includes four scents, each linked to a different color. (Think Power Rangers or Spice Girls, but more expensive and with polo mallets.) The Sporty Fragrance, #1, is packaged in a blue bottle, and is a floral citrus; #2, which is pink, is the Sensual Fragrance, described as a “floriental fruity;” #3, which is yellow, is called the Free-Spirited Fragrance, with pear and mimosa highlights; and #4, which is purple, is the Stylish Fragrance, with wild cherry and purple amber.
The song, which the band will release on an album due out this summer, also plays when women take the Life in Color Quiz, which the company describes as “a digital magazine meets interactive film,” a four-question video quiz to help the customer discover her “Big Pony Fragrance fit.” Using cuts from the two-minute commercial, it also offers a $4,000 Ralph Lauren shopping spree, and can be shared on Facebook, Twitter and email.
The line launches this month exclusively at Bloomingdale’s and Ralph Lauren stores, and then rolls into department stores in April. (www.mediapost.com)
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