• by Erik Sass , December 27, 2007

The Itandi Group, which operates a place-based video network in hair and nail salons, has partnered with Splash News to broadcast a three-minute news segment covering celebrity news and gossip. The segments, produced on a weekly basis, will include 90 seconds of sponsorship time for advertisers every 30 minutes.

Itandi claims to reach over 100,000 viewers a month--touting this "captive" audience as relatively affluent, with a high level of disposable income. Aggressively partnering with new salons, it hopes to reach 1 million viewers by the end of 2008 and 4 million by the end of 2010.

Gary Morgan, CEO of Splash News, remarked: "When we saw Itandi in a Manhattan nail salon, with every woman watching the screens, we saw the huge potential for accessing a captive and exciting new audience."

Salons and barbershops are proving to be increasingly attractive to marketers as platforms for reaching consumers in a friendly social setting where they may be more receptive to ad messages.

In late September, Alloy Media + Marketing's urban and multicultural division, Alloy Access, announced the launch of an out-of-home ad network targeting African-American and Hispanic consumers via barbershops and salons. The barbershop and salon agreement with the Black Owned Beauty Supply Association opens up potential relationships with all 1,700 of its members.

At launch, the new network includes 400 venues in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Alloy plans to double this number by the end of 2008.