Automotive Advertising in Local Papers Plummets 40 Percent

In 2006, nearly 80 percent of automotive advertising dollars went to television. Spot buys made up 45 percent of the total, up 4 percent, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Total automotive spending dipped 1 percent to $13.5 billion, writes Mediaweek. National magazines got 11 percent of that total. Local newspapers took the biggest hit, down 40 percent from the previous year. National Sunday supplements were down 36 percent and local Sunday supplements were down 24 percent.
Auto budgets were also cut in cable TV (down 9 percent), national magazines (down 10 percent), national newspapers (down 6 percent), and syndicated TV (down 21 percent).

Network TV saw gains of 3 percent, spot radio was up 8 percent, Spanish-language network and cable TV were up 9 percent, and outdoor and network radio grew 1 percent. Local magazines were up 9 percent.

While total ad dollars dipped, five of the top 10 auto advertisers - Ford, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Mazda - increased budgets. Reducing budgets were GM, DaimlerChrysler, Nissan, Volkswagen and Kia.

Image Optometry and Greyfriars Realty hope Canucks move to round two!

Vancouver - BECK Agencies is please to have secured two new advertisers in Round Two of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. If Vancouver moves to the next round, Hockey Night in Canada will see two new clients in the roster.

Launch the videos to view the Image Opometry and Greyfriars Realty HNIC 15second versions of their commercials.






For more information contact:
Mitch Drew
President
BECK Agencies
604-520-9866 bus
mitch@beckbc.com

USA Today Gets 380% Bump in Traffic after Web 2.0 Makeover

USA Today's community-centric makeover last month appears to be paying off as the site has seen a dramatic 380 percent increase in registrations since the re-launch, while its unique visitor rates have grown 21 percent from February, according to Nielsen//NetRatings (via MediaPost and MarketingVox).

Last month, USA Today relaunched its website with video, blogs, dynamic content-sharing and recommendation tools. Expanded user-profile and social network capabilities and public comment tools led to nearly 40,000 user comments about the web 2.0 upgrades in March.

Sections seeing particularly strong traffic gains include Sports, Money, Travel and Tech, according to Gannett's internal measurements.

To achieve the site's new look and feel, USA Today enlisted the proprietary social media services of Pluck Corp. Pluck SiteLife, for example, makes possible reader blogs, photo sharing, content ratings, reader comments, and forums, while Pluck BlogBurst is a blog syndication network with some 3,400 blogs serving up content to major news outlets, magazines and broadcast networks worldwide.

www.usatoday.com

For more information on how you can improve your web site contact:
Mitch Drew
President
BECK Interactive
A division of BECK Agencies
mitch@beckbc.com
604-520-9866 tel

Broco Auto Glass and Harvey's Furniture in Hockey Playoffs

BECK Agencies is pleased to announce that two of our clients will be in the Stanley Cup Playoff series between the Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars.




"Vancouver hockey fans are going wild over this Playoff series and we wanted to position our clients in this effective and extremely efficient television event" said Mitch Drew, President BECK Agencies. The commercials will be running in-game and in OT. The audience rating estimates for the series is 25 Gross Rating Points and with out-of-home viewers watching in restaurants and pubs, the actual number of viewer will likely be much higher!

Hockey Night in Canada is a brand Canadians grew up with and aligning Broco Auto Glass and Harvey's Furniture with this premium brand is an excellent way to REACH a broad audience and increase the efficiencies of the overall television strategy.

For more information on how BECK Agencies can help your business grow, call:

Mitch Drew
President
BECK Agencies
604-520-9866 tel
mitch@beckbc.com

Study: Email Least Effective Tool for Luxury Goods Marketers

Email is the least effective vehicle for presenting a luxury brand image; better methods include direct mail, catalogs, phone calls and special events, says a new study by Echelon Marketing Group.

The study revealed that events are particularly effective: when invitations are sent to a select group to test drive cars during a special event, six out of 10 will wind up buying a car, says Echelon president Don Neal (via Brandweek).

The study also shows that, while 85 percent of luxury marketers want to engage in more one-on-one dialogues with consumers, only half of them actually do so.

In Local Web Video Ads, Newspapers Beat TV Stations

Ironically, newspapers are beating out TV stations when it comes to leveraging video on websites and other digital channels, according to Borrell Associates.

Last year, local newspaper sites had a 50 percent (roughly $80 million) share of total video ad revenue, compared with TV station sites' 20 percent ($32 million). Other local sites combined have 30 percent of local video ad revenue ($48 million), reports MediaWeek (via MarketingVox).

TV stations are getting a larger share of video ad spending this year than last, about 24 percent, estimated Borrell. It said TV stations would reap larger ad shares if they hire dedicated sales staffs to manage digital media sales.

Online video, which makes up only 5 percent of local advertising this year, is becoming a more prominent feature of local online ad revenue. Borrell expects that by 2012 online video advertising will take 35 percent of all local online ad dollars, which are projected to reach more than $7.7 billion.

Cherry to make U.S. debut on NBC

NEW YORK (AP) -- Don Cherry is bringing his loud mouth and louder outfits south of the border.

The outspoken former coach of the Boston Bruins, who has been a fixture on CBC's "Hockey Night In Canada' telecasts for more than 25 years, will make his U.S. broadcasting debut as part of NBC's Stanley Cup playoff telecasts, the network announced Tuesday.

"A lot of people have written that what I say up here I would never get away with it down in the States," said Cherry, the Bruins' coach from the 1974-75 season until the 1978-79 campaign. "I'll just go on and do what I have to do.

"In the States, they wanted me to go on one time in Pittsburgh. Jaromir Jagr, it was when he had long hair and he was with Mario Lemieux and I said, 'There's Mario and his daughter.' It didn't go over too good. That was my last time in the States."

Cherry will be teamed with Brett Hull, the never-shy former player who is in his first season with NBC.

"Better get some plaids," Cherry said.

Hull will also to contribute to CBC's coverage in Canada.

"He tells it like it is," Hull said of Cherry. "If they did it on a regular basis, he would be just as popular down here as he is up there. Part of the thing that's missing, not with just hockey, but in all coverage in the American sports world, is some personality. I think that's why you see a guy like Terry Bradshaw, as popular as he is.

"He's not just Mr. P.C., going, 'That was a nice catch and throw."'

35 Percent of TV Watchers View Shows away from Home

More than a third of television viewers watch TV at a location away from their homes during a typical week - and those viewers are less likely to change channels during commercials than they are when they watch at home.

According to an away-from-home television viewing study, Arbitron also found that 64 percent of viewers ages 12 to 17 and 49 percent of viewers 18-24 watch TV away from home at least once a week.

This is a much higher number than previously shown in other studies and surveys, writes Mediaweek.

Sporting events, local news broadcasts and episodes of a TV series were all watched almost equally during out-of-home viewing.

CNNMoney.com Luxury Channel Launched

CNNMoney.com launched a luxury channel this week, hoping to attract high-end advertisers with a rich-media-intensive environment.

Infiniti, with a roadblock ad for the Infiniti G Sedan, is among the site's first advertisers., according to MediaPost (via MarketingVox).

Featuring eye-catching photography, galleries and videos, the site includes such features as Honeymoon Hotspots and homes from the wealthiest ZIP codes.

Previous luxury features on the site have proven popular. A story about the $8 million Maybach Exelero resulted in 22,000 video streams, and the private lives of millionaires yielded some 38,000 streams, according to a CNNMoney.com spokesperson.

CNNMoney.com draws content from other Time Inc. properties, including Money and Fortune magazines.

Fred Beck in new creative for BROCO Auto Glass

President and CEO Fred Beck's personal guarantee on CITY TV and A-Channel


BROCO Auto Glass has launched an aggressive advertising campaign on CITY TV and A-Channel offering customer incentives and featuring the companies founder Fred Beck as spokesperson.

For more information contact:
mitch@beckbc.com

Google to sell satellite TV ads

The Web search giant will use an automated online auction system to reach millions of EchoStar subscribers.

By Alex Pham, Times Staff Writer
April 3, 2007

Google Inc. took its first leap into the lucrative but fiercely competitive market for selling television advertising Monday, announcing a deal to deliver ads to millions of subscribers of satellite TV company EchoStar Communications Corp.

The deal underscores Google's ambition to become a premier broker of advertising for not just the Internet, but TV, radio, print publications and other media.

Google said it would sell a portion of EchoStar's TV ads through an automated online auction system that's similar to the one it has used to dominate Web-search ads.

"We think that TV is becoming more like the Web," said Keval Desai, Google's director of product management for TV advertising. "If you think about TV, you have hundreds of networks. That's a lot of content. The audience is getting increasingly fragmented. If you're an advertiser, it's very hard for you to go and target these networks one by one. You need a scalable, automated platform."

READ THE ARTICLE AT LATIMES.COM