Though cable networks’ ad revenue in the five-county Los Angeles DMA is up 37% since 2000, executives at the region’s advertising interconnect believe the medium still isn’t getting its share of the advertising pie.
To attract even more advertisers, Adlink has created a multimedia pitch kit to leave behind at agencies, making cable’s case. They’re now being hand-delivered to national accounts and will be presented to regional and local advertisers shortly, according to the interconnect.
“There’s been a shift of audience,” noted Matt Brown, vice president of marketing and communications for the interconnect, which is jointly owned by Adelphia Media Services, Time Warner Cable, Comcast Corp., Charter Communications Inc. and Cox Communications Inc.
TOP 10 FORMAT
Brown referred to recent studies, which have shown that viewers — especially women and those in the coveted younger demographic — have migrated from broadcast fare to cable TV.
“But we’re still not getting our fair share,” he said.
The kit is designed around a “Top 10” list format and is designed to give the viewers at agencies control over how much information they want from each segment of the list. In the past, said Brown, interconnect personnel might give a generalized sales pitch, then return some other time to tout Adcopy and Adtag, Adlink’s customization products that allow an advertiser to run various versions of the same ad in the interconnect’s different regions, or to tag the ad with the closest retailer address in a region.
With the presentation kit, agency staffers can review the information at their leisure.
Adlink’s revenues continue to grow each year. According to Brown, the interconnect collected $120 million in 2002 and $144 million last year. Its goal for this year is $170 million.
Adlink inserts on 44 networks that are offered in Ventura, Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino by its owner companies. Advertisers can customize their messages in 80 distinct target zones offered by the interconnect. Segmentation is offered by four ethnicities (Caucasian, African-American, Asian and Hispanic), by county, urban/suburban, beaches/valleys, voting districts, area codes or ZIP codes.
Advertisers are using the messaging flexibility. A recent flight by Jiffy Lube saw 58 different version of ads telecast, for instance.
Jiffy Lube was also the local sponsor of an on air-promo supporting last month’s TBS Sex and the City sweepstakes. The Adlink-secured promo ran across such services as A&E Network, Bravo, Comedy Central, E! Entertainment Television, Food Network, FX, GSN, Home & Garden Television, Lifetime Television, TLC, VH1 and TBS.
Adlink executives hope advertisers will be swayed by such data as a recent survey which showed that the majority of advertising experts (43.2%) would select broadcast if offered only one advertising medium.
CONSUMERS’ CHOICE
Cable came in second at 30%. But the majority of consumers said that if they had access to only one medium they would pick cable (33.3 %), followed by online content (23.4%).
On the consumer side broadcast came in third, selected by 16.8% of respondents.
Adlink also stresses cable-sports viewership, noting the 1,459 live sporting events that cable programmers offer throughout the year.
Special events have also performed well locally.
For example, MTV: Music Television’s Music Video Awards garnered a 9.9 household rating, outdelivering 478 shows in primetime on competing networks, including other award shows such as the Billboard Music Awards on UPN and CBS’s Academy of Country Music Awards, according to Adlink.
