A&E Brings New Twists, Old Successes To Upfront

This year's upfront is set to be one of the most unusual. Many TV programmers are offering an array of possible metrics for advertisers--but none will evolve into an industry standard in 2007. Instead, there will be plenty of experimentation, coupled with a little confusion. A&C hopes to separate itself from the pack.

"It is a very exploratory time," says Nick Febrizio, senior vice president of research and strategy for A&E Television Networks. "I don't think the market will settle on one thing this year. There will be a lot of learning."

A&E Networks, like other cable nets, will be talking up its success stories, featuring positive aspects about engagement, brand recall and commercial ratings in the pre-upfront meetings with advertisers.

This is the first year that A&E will be using data from IAG Research, which has been achieving an increased level of notoriety. NBC executives said recently that last year, it made some deals with national advertisers using IAG Research for "engagement." NBC plans to do more such deals this season.

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With that in mind, A&E will present a wide range of successful deals to advertisers involving forward-looking metrics. For example, for the January 10 premiere of "The Sopranos" on basic cable, A&E scaled back commercials--much lower than its usual load. In fact, there was only one commercial in the first 30 minutes of the show--a two-and-a-half-minute trailer for Paramount Pictures' "Zodiac."

And the spot was a winner. A&E says the "Zodiac" spot witnessed 6% higher ratings over the average ratings for the entire program--which also includes commercials and other non-content time. Overall, the "Zodiac" trailer grabbed 94% of "Soprano's" quarter-hour ratings. All commercial breaks during the initial episode pulled in 90% of the whole program's ratings.

A&E's Febrizio calls these pretty good numbers, versus other program-commercial comparisons.

Then there is the "engagement" piece. A&E said the "Zodiac" title had a recall score of 70%, which it says was almost 20% higher than other movie trailers that have run on broadcast or cable networks. Plus, "Zodiac" had a 17% score when it came to "Intent to See"--which was over 20% higher than other movie trailers.

A&E also has a good story to tell advertisers about "Criss Angel: Mindfreak" and its branded entertainment agreement with liquor advertiser Tanqueray last December. Tanqueray did a hybrid branded integration which, according to IAG's definition, means it doesn't occur in the content of the show. Instead, a hybrid means that elements of a show appear in a commercial.

As a result, Tanqueray got a 35% brand recall--twice as high as similar efforts that ran on other networks, while Tanqueray's "likeability" score of 27% was three times higher than other efforts of its type.

A&E will also tout straight-ahead traditional product-placement deals, like the one KFC did with "Driving Force," a reality show about the John Force car racing family. Last fall, the KFC product placement grabbed 81% general recall versus 51% of other product-placement deals for fast-food restaurants. For more specific brand recall, it registered a 69% number compared to 30% for other fast food advertisers.

"One of the most important points we gleaned from all this," says Febrizio, "was to understand customer needs. Anything that points to improved return on investment in conjunction with the program, speaks to the success of learning."

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