Granada Media Sales plans to offer advertisers more opportunities
for advertorials, following a deal with Peugeot which makes it the first
car manufacturer to use the format on television.
Peugeot is airing eight five-minute advertorials across Granada Sky
Broadcasting’s cable and satellite channels, such as Men and Motors,
Plus and Breeze.
Craig Nayman, sales director at Granada Media Sales, satellite and
cable, says the campaign is just ’scratching the surface’ of what he
plans for the future.
’We want to be pioneers in this area, using it for existing advertisers
who want to look beyond the 30-second ad and also to reach out to new
clients who have never advertised on TV,’ he said.
Nayman says the advertorials give Peugeot ’a unique share of voice’.
Each film, produced in conjunction with Initiative Media, is devoted to
a different model in the range and appears on channels whose audiences
best match the appropriate target market. For example, the film for the
806, which is aimed at women, will appear mostly on Breeze.
Granada made the films inhouse, using the Men and Motors production
team. Nayman said this enabled the advertorials to be made quickly and
cost-effectively. The Peugeot project took just two days to film.
Peugeot is not the first Granada Sky Broadcasting advertiser to take the
advertorial route. Unilever ran campaigns for Domestos and Jiff, but
these were two-minute films. Nayman was encouraged that mainstream
brands were keen to explore the medium: ’Advertorials are evolving very
quickly and it looks like being a great opportunity for us,’ he
said.
Granada has appointed a business development manager, Damon Letzer, to
eye further opportunities for advertorials and to develop the market for
non-traditional TV advertisers. Nayman said interactive TV via Sky
Digital or ONdigital would enable clients to take the advertorial
concept further.
However, David Sanderson, sales director at Carlton Digital, was less
enthusiastic. ’The difficulty for most channels is that they don’t have
the flexibility and space in their schedules to carry advertorials,’ he
said.
’Also, I’m not sure longer ads are the way forward in the increasingly
nimble multi-channel environment.’