Media&Marketing Emmet OliverWith the peak holiday season fast approaching, advertisers and media organisations are gearing up to find new ways to chase Irish consumers, even when they are on the beach in Spain.
New outdoor sites have been launched for advertisers seeking to connect with the youth segment of their target audience when they are on their summer holidays.
Advertisers can now take advantage of massive banner sites in Ibiza and there are now 11 banner sites available in San Antonio.
These will remain intact for the summer targeting the thousands of Irish holidaymakers.
AFA O'Meara points out that about 12 per cent (76,700) of the Irish population of 15- to 24-year-olds visit the Spanish islands each year.
Euro football boosts Network 2 revenues
The pulsating finish to the England-France Euro 2004 game on Sunday provided a significant financial boost for Network 2. While the station is loss-making despite a generous allocation of licence fee revenue, this summer's football matches are providing the station with some welcome revenue.
At some stages of the match on Network 2 the audience reached 299,259 adults, representing a 37 per cent share of Sunday evening TV viewers.
Mr Gary Power, communications consultant with AFA O'Meara, who tracks media audiences closely, said this figure could be boosted by the 4 per cent "out-of-home" factor. In other words, people watching in pubs theoretically could bring the viewership to 311,229 adults.
"The share of viewing among men was even higher at 45 per cent. These audience figures will help attract further advertising revenue to Network 2, which reported an operating loss of 10.4 million in 2003, despite the RTÉ itself reporting a trading surplus of €2.2 million," said Mr Power.
Compact paper craze continues
The London Times is planning to roll out its compact edition all over the UK as the newspaper industry becomes fixated by the reduced formats.
The latest monthly ABC figures for the UK newspaper sector put the Times in the number one position in terms of sales of compacts. Under the latest plan, the Times will still be available in broadsheet, unlike the Independent, which is now only available in compact.
The latest UK circulation figures put the increase of year-on-year sales at the Independent at 15.4 per cent.
While this represents a remarkable change it has not come without some cost. Davy, which is one of Independent News and Media's (IN&M) brokers, points out this week that advertising volumes at the paper have fallen by 24 per cent.
Citing a report in the Sunday Telegraph, the broker says some agencies have pulled advertising, arguing that a full-page advert in a compact newspaper should cost no more than half the price of one in a broadsheet. This has resulted in reduced revenue coming into the paper.
€100,000 spend on Beat promotion
Beat 102-103, Ireland's only regional radio station broadcasting in the south-east, is implementing a 100,000 marketing campaign to celebrate the stations first year on air.
Beat, which targets 15- to 34-year-olds across Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny, Carlow and Tipperary, celebrates its first birthday on July 1st and Irish International has devised the campaign, which involves TV, cinema, 120 telephone kiosks and various on-street promotions.
One of the most interesting features of the Beat campaign will be a 20-second animated television commercial to be broadcast on MTV continually until the end of September. The advert will also be screened in a variety of cinemas across the south-east region.
Emmet Oliver can be reached at eoliver@irish-times.ie
