Because they pay top ad rates, spend oodles of money and negotiate aggressively, theatrical movie marketers are known to get some of the best commercial advertising positions on television. But according to a revealing new study, some studios get treated better than others, but surprisingly, it's not necessarily by the networks they own. Because the holiday season is also one of the biggest theatrical move release marketing seasons of the year, Media IQ conducted a special analysis of the prime-time network TV advertising schedules of the top 10 studios for MDN. The data shows that, as a category, motion picture marketers do in fact get preferential treatment, with an average of 27 percent of their spots running in so-called "A" positions, or the first slot in a commercial pod. A positions are deemed more effective and more valuable than other spots in a pod, because research shows viewers are most likely to see those before turning the channel or fast-forwarding through commercial content. Because movie marketers have a critically short window to "open" their films - often only own or two weekends can determine box office success - every element of their advertising strategies is treated more acutely than marketers in many other categories. The problem is that there often is a tremendous amount of competitive clutter, with studios opening films in the same weekend, especially during the holiday movie marketing season. "So we got to thinking about which studios actually do the best for commercial positioning," says Brian Cauley, a partner and part of the management team of Media IQ, which helps marketers monitor and evaluate the performance of their agencies' media buys. What did they find? "Paramount rules the lot. Their releases averaged 33 percent A positions compared with an average of 27% for all releases." The analysis, which looked at data from 120 films grossing $10 million or more that were released between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30, found that Paramount managed to reap A positions in a third of its commercial inventory, even though it released fewer films and advertised less than six other studios. Part of that preferential treatment is explainable by the fact that Paramount's parent Viacom also controls two of the six broadcast networks, CBS and UPN, which did in fact give Paramount better positions than most networks, but not the best of any studios. While Paramount films attained more than half of their CBS and UPN inventory as A positions, UPN actually gave more As to rival Warner Bros.' movies, while CBS gave more of them to Newmarket Films. That seems nothing short of miraculous, given that Newmarket is a relatively new and tiny player, and that the studio, owned by Mel Gibson, marketed only one film: "The Passion of the Christ." "Granted, the movie only bought six units, but at least three were A positions," explained M-IQ's Cauley. By comparison, he said, a relatively powerful studio like Dreamworks "got crucified buying 36 units and getting the same number of As in total: three for a meager 8 percent [of total CBS inventory]." Warner Bros., which ranked No. 2 in overall percentage of A positions - 32 percent - naturally got top treatment by sister network The WB, but it also reaped the best positioning on rival UPN and Fox. The Fox studio, meanwhile, did only average among the major studios in positioning overall, but actually got inferior treatment on its own television network, Fox, where it ranked sixth among the studios. The same is true of Walt Disney Co. The Disney studio performed well below average overall, and actually ranked only fifth on its own network, ABC. "Did Fox and Walt Disney butter their own popcorn?," quipped Cauley. "Nope, they got middle of the bucket treatment on their own networks." Cauley also noted that not all prime-time nights are created equal for movie marketers. "Since most movies are released on Fridays, Thursday is a coveted night for studio advertising," he pointed out. "We looked at NBC and CBS Thursday nights, the networks representing the most eyeballs that night. What we found is that Paramount and Warner Bros. really take a leading role on NBC on Thursday night, with 63 percent and 44 percent As, respectively. The next closest studio is Fox with 26 percent. Dreamworks and Miramax are mere extras with 14 percent and 7 percent, respectively. Percentage Of Prime-Time 'A' Positions Given To Movie Studios Paramount 33% Warner Bros. 32% MGM 30% Newmarket 30% Fox 27% Sony 26% Miramax 25% Universal 23% Disney 22% Dreamworks 20% Total 27% Source: Media IQ analysis of data from TNS Media Intelligence/CMR. 2004-to-date prime-time network TV ad spending for all theatrical releases grossing $10 million or more.
Poker and GolfAll In founder Bhu Srinivasan believes that in laying out the possibilities for his new magazine, he can draw a clear parallel to another category that has seen robust growth over the last decade: golf. "Poker could be this generation's golf," he said. He is betting that just like golf's recent boom in popularity, tons of amateur poker players will be seeking help. "When you look at Golf Digest, you know you are going to get a bunch of pages analyzing Ernie Ells' swing," he said. "With us, it's going to be 20-plus pages really looking at playing [poker]. We are not just looking at the lifestyle stuff--the froth--but providing a tremendous amount of instruction." Of course, All In will not ignore the cool, celebrity aspects of the game. There will be stories on top players, plus poker-culture pieces like "poker on Wall Street" or "poker on campus." Yet with the games' ever-increasing exposure, is poker like golf, or closer to cigars? Cigars were huge in the late 1990s, spawning Cigar Aficionado. Yet the magazine eventually chose to downplay the "Cigar" part of the title once that trend faded. So is poker a fad? "I get that question all the time," he said. "But it's not like poker came on overnight. ESPN has been broadcasting it since 1993. The movie "Rounders" came out in 1998. It has been in every Western movie. And college kids have been playing it forever." As for why poker has been so hot over the last year or so, Srinivasan says that a number of disparate elements of poker have come together at the same time (what he calls the perfect storm of poker). The lipstick camera made broadcasts more compelling as viewers could see each player's cards. Then there's the reality TV phenomenon and the fact that all these ex-day-traders have been drawn to the game. And perhaps biggest of all, amateur online poker player Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker in 2003. "Poker has a lot of staying power," said Srinivasan. Srinivasan says that All In is the perfect place for male-affinity brands like tobacco and cigarettes to target 20- to 30-somethhing males with "lots of disposable income," and adds: "All the major agencies want to hop on early." Plus, there should be plenty of endemic advertising from destination casinos, most of which have added a significant amount of poker playing space in recent years. Media Kits With a Kick When the new publisher of Cargo Alan Katz needed to get his magazine's media kit noticed by top executives at key clients this year, he turned to Gillespie Design Inc. "He said: 'I need to get the president of Sony to open my package. How do I do that?'" said Gillespie Design President Maureen Gillespie. Gillespie Design specializes in creating standout media kits and direct mail pieces for advertisers and media companies, incorporating the personality of such brands into their product's design. To get noticed among those generic folder-type media kits that contain endless pages of statistics, Gillespie designed a miniature toolbox for Cargo containing a few small gadgets, including a Leatherman multi-tool device. The box went out to roughly 200 of Cargo's most important clients. By design, the toolbox captured what Conde Nast was trying to get across about Cargo. "I always ask publishers: 'If you could say only two things about your brand, what would they be?'" said Gillespie. For Cargo, it was that the magazine was a tool that men would use to make buying decisions. Gillespie Design, which has been around for 13 years, also produces creative concepts for clients in addition to generating design pieces. When the AARP was relaunching its magazine product two years ago, Gillespie created a tag line from the company's reader research: "Every seven seconds, someone turns 50." Gillespie's work, which was recently featured in the book "1000 Design Elements," does not come cheap, as individual campaigns are believed to run into the six-figure range. And they do not have an extended usage life. "We never repeat anything," Gillespie said. But for many clients, the medium is a powerful one. "In this day and age when people get so much mail, how do you get them to notice?" asked Gillespie. "We give sales reps the ammunition to get noticed." Notes: -Cosmopolitan will host its first ever Fearless Male Award Luncheon on February 7th. -Time will name its "Person of the Year" on Sunday morning (the issue comes out on Monday. According to Managing Editor Jim Kelly, Mel Gibson, Michael Moore, Karl Rove, President Bush, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are all candidates. -Business 2.0 has launched a nationwide multimedia marketing campaign to promote the magazine's rate base increase and record advertising revenue growth. The campaign will include direct marketing and an electronic and print campaign, as well as airport dioramas targeted to business travelers. -Cooking Light's readers are currently being challenged to come up with award-winning dishes utilizing products from sponsors Ronzoni, Healthy Harvest Whole Wheat Pasta Blend, 3-A-Day milk, cheese, or yogurt; Swanson Broths; and/or Hellman's Best Foods as part of the first annual "Ultimate Reader Recipe Contest: Supper Club Edition."
In the twelfth week of the prime-time broadcast season, the battle for ratings is still neck and neck, with cable closing in. In the past week ending last Sunday, broadcast delivered 34.34 household rating points in prime time, while ad-supported cable delivered an aggregate 33.17 household rating, according to Nielsen. But as the Television Advertising Bureau--which advocates on behalf of local broadcast--noted in its analysis of the past week's ratings, "when this rating is adjusted to eliminate ADS homes, ad-supported cable's delivery drops to 25.64." CBS finished in first place with an 8.47 household rating, and ABC followed with a 6.98 household rating, while NBC delivered a 6.59 rating and Fox delivered a 4.28 rating. The top 10 ad-supported cable networks delivered 14.58 household rating points in prime time this past week. The remaining 55 ad-supported cable nets split 18.59 household rating points. The top ad-supported cable nets this week were ESPN, TNT, and Lifetime. As for programming, broadcast delivered 94 of the top 100 prime-time programs based on household ratings. CBS's "CSI" took first place, with an 18.37 household rating, followed by ABC's "Desperate Housewives," which finished second with a 13.54 household rating. Ad-supported cable's highest-ranking program was ESPN's coverage of the Eagles-Redskins game, which delivered a 6.70 household rating.