Tuesday 28 October 2008


Luxury brands advertise in new Westfield shopping centre
by Alison Donnelly, Marketing 28-Oct-08, 15:21

LONDON - CBS Outdoor has signed a raft of luxury advertisers to run digital ad campaigns on its LCD screens in the Westfield London shopping centre, which opens this week.

Tiffany & Co, Yves Saint Laurent and Mulberry, along with technology brands Samsung and T-Mobile are among the launch advertisers in the centre across the 110 bespoke, 57-inch LCD screens.
Ads will be located in pods around the centre, which are double-sided for maximum visibility. The images will appear in high definition, with each screen linked to a digital advertising network that enables partners to remotely update their messages on a 60-second loop.


The biggest of the three screens, which measures 13 metres by 4.5 metres, will be located above The Atrium, the main event space within Westfield London.

Nicky Cheshire, director of Alive, CBS Outdoor said: 'We believe that our unique digital proposition at Westfield will redefine retail advertising in the UK and bring a host of new advertisers into our market. The high production values, flexibility of targeting and stunning retail environment will offer advertisers a premium platform for captivating some of the capital's most affluent consumers.'




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Clear Channel offers tailored ads for party season


LONDON - Clear Channel is offering tailored advertising solutions around Halloween and Bonfire night for brands wanting to target consumers celebrating the beginning of the party season.


The packages include roadside billboards, roadside six-sheets and at Sainsbury's, digital roadside LED screens close to events, seasonal destinations and on regular routes for families.

To target the primary Halloween audience of families with children, Clear Channel has identified three customer networks - home, school and shopping. These "customer journeys" will allow clients to target families with roadside billboards and six-sheet posters.

Clear Channel claims Halloween and Bonfire night are the start of a key sales period for alcohol brands and so has selected advertising opportunities close to bars and areas popular with drinkers.

Sites close to London firework displays such as Alexandra Palace, Victoria Park and Roundwood Park have been selected for advertisers keen to target crowds attending the celebrations.

Planners can also choose to add time-sensitive elements such as product countdowns and price promotions to campaigns with Clear Channel digital roadside LED screens.





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Ocean Outdoor picks up £70 million contract for White City shopping mall


LONDON - Ocean Outdoor has scooped an estimated £70m 10-year contract for outdoor advertising for the soon-to-launch Westfield shopping centre in London's White City after a competitive pitch.

Ocean Outdoor will deliver "cutting-edge" advertising on static and video screens around the exterior of the shopping centre to complement the "luxurious" look and feel of the centre. CBS Outdoor has the separate £60m contract for advertising inside the centre.

The first location, featuring three 12x3m digital screens, has been completed at the Holland Park roundabout and is ready f or launch as a precursor to a structural roll-out between now and early 2009.

Damian Cox, chief executive at Ocean Outdoor, said: "Westfield is a unique offering in an unbeatable location. We have sourced the world's best technology - all sites are LED - and utilised the skills of some of the most renowned architects to develop advertising platforms that truly stand out in an already-cluttered outdoor market."

The Westfield London shopping centre opens next Thursday. It will be Europe's largest inner-city shopping venue and the only retail environment in the UK where advertising opportunities are exclusively digital.

Westfield adds to Ocean Outdoor's stable of specialist large-scale advertising locations, including London's IMAX cinema, banner and digital screens at Glasgow's George Square and, most recently, Europe's largest outdoor digital media wall in Liverpool.



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Tuesday 7 October 2008

Titan Outdoor scoops £9m contracts


by Maisie McCabe, Media Week 30-Sep-08, 07:30

LONDON - Titan Outdoor has landed contracts worth more than £9m to handle outdoor advertising in key shopping centres in Bristol and Milton Keynes.

It is understood that Titan won the contract for Bristol's Cabot Circus shopping centre after a competitive pitch against Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor.
It is also thought that the contract for thecentre:mk in Milton Keynes was awarded following a pitch with Clear Channel. CBS was unavailable for comment and Clear Channel declined to comment.


Cabot Circus is a new development. It has 70 six-sheets with a proportion of digital. The site's opening advertisers include Ford Fiesta, Orange and the DVD of CSI: Las Vegas. The contract will be worth £6m over the next 10 years.

Titan will also provide 24 digital sites, which rotate three times to give 84 faces in thecentre:mk in Milton Keynes.
This deal is worth £3.3m over five years from 1 November. Previously, thecentre:mk only had three six-sheet sites.
Titan said it now controls the advertising contracts of 90 shopping centres across the country.
Titan Outdoor entered the UK market when it acquired Maiden Outdoor for a reported £10.6m in March 2006.
In July, Titan Outdoor unveiled plans for a £2m roll-out of more than 100 digital screens across its rail estate, as well as plans to extend digital to its shopping malls. Previously, Titan's digital presence comprised 17 Transvision digital screens in 16 UK rail stations.
However, by November the company plans to have installed 106 digital six-sheet screens across London railway stations, including Victoria, Charing Cross and Waterloo.




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Clear Channel to introduce energy efficient outdoor backlighting


by Maisie McCabe, Media Week 23-Sep-08, 10:30

LONDON - Clear Channel is to convert its backlit formats from fluorescent tubes to an LED lighting system as part of its commitment to energy efficiency.

The company said its new Luminaire lights will reduce electricity consumption by 75% and have a longer life expectancy than traditional fluorescent tubes. According to Clear Channel, the lights will also provide a clearer, crisper display to improve the presentation of the advertising creative


After a successful pilot in Chiswick, west London, Clear Channel is to transfer a quarter of its backlights and scrollers to the LED system by the first quarter of 2009.

Mark Webb, operations director at Clear Channel Outdoor UK, said the new technology would save energy and reduce the need for recycling, while also improving reliability.

The new technology will be rolled out to all backlit billboards in the UK by 2010.



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JCDecaux Airport secures £2m cross-platform campaign at Heathrow


by Maisie McCabe, Media Week 16-Sep-08, 14:25

LONDON - JCDecaux Airport has signed a cross-platform deal, thought to be worth about £2m, with a major Nigerian bank, which is designed to reach all travellers coming through Heathrow's terminal five and more than 90% of passengers using terminals one, two and three.

The campaign has been launched by Intercontinental Bank to highlight the opening of its first UK branch in Leadenhall Street in London last week and to target high-end travellers.

This is the first time Intercontinental Bank has advertised at Heathrow. The deal was booked directly with a Nigerian media company, Strategic Solution Media.


Adekunle Ade-Onojobi, brand management consultant for Intercontinental Bank and chief executive of Strategic Solutions Media, said London was a strategic addition to Intercontinental Bank's global expansion.

Richard Malton, marketing director of JCDecaux Airport, said the Intercontinental Bank campaign was "exceptional". "It encompasses Heathrow's most sought-after sites in a year-long holding, on a scale that is unprecedented," he said.

JCDecaux Airport has said it is looking to oil-rich countries across the world to replace cutbacks in countries hit by the credit crunch. The group recently booked a campaign with another Nigerian bank, the Guaranty Trust Bank, which was also organised directly with Nigeria.

Recently, Emirates airlines purchased the old Concorde site at the entrance to Heathrow. An Emirates-branded three-quarter-length version of the new Airbus 8330 now stands where Concorde did for 20 years.



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JCDecaux in talks to buy News Outdoor Group


by Maisie McCabe, Media Week 11-Sep-08, 16:25

LONDON - JCDecaux has announced today that it has entered into exclusive talks to buy Rupert Murdoch's outdoor advertising division, News Outdoor Group.

The outdoor media owner, based in Paris, has confirmed it is in exclusive discussions with News Corporation about a potential transaction relating to News Outdoor Group.

The French out-of-home company said the proposed transaction would involve cash and shares and would result in a merger of the assets of the two outdoor firms.



JCDecaux is the second largest outdoor advertising agency in the world. The company generated more than €2.1bn (£1.7bn) in revenue during 2007 and €1,067.6m (£849m) in the first half of this year.

News Outdoor Group has concentrated in developing markets such as Russia, Eastern Europe and south-east Asia.

News Outdoor is currently under investigation in Russia



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Monday 15 September 2008

Mini seeks agency for digital and experiential project


by Matt Williams Campaign 11-Sep-08, 05:50

LONDON - Mini, the BMW-owned car manufacturer, is on the hunt for an agency to take on a digital and experiential project.

The brief, which is being handled by the AAR, will cover all cars in the Mini range and comes as the brand shifts its focus towards a more experiential advertising approach.

At present, Mini's advertising roster incorporates a number of agencies, including Lida, Profero and WCRS.

The project is understood not to affect relationships with any of the incumbent agencies, although it is not known whether roster agencies will be asked to pitch for the business.

Mini has a history of experiential marketing campaigns. In 2006, the brand built a hospitality barge and set up a giant Mini Space Invaders game outside the entrance of the London Motor Show.

It also ran a "Mini adventure" campaign alongside the digital campaign of the same name created by Profero.

The brand tour a number of major venues across Britain, setting up ?special events and allowing the public to test drive cars from the Mini range.

The experiential push saw Mini customise a number of cars into other modes of transport, including ice-cream vans and London black cabs.



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CBS Outdoor creates new bus ad opportunities


by Maisie McCabe Media Week 08-Sep-08, 15:30

LONDON - CBS Outdoor has launched a new large-format bus advertising opportunity for customers looking to target consumers on the move.

The new format, initially available on 30 buses in Leeds with plans to roll it out the across the country in the near future, has the same dimensions as a 48-sheet, offering flexible large-scale exterior bus advertising on a single-decker bus


The launch campaign is for Leeds Trinity and All Saints, a local higher education institution, planned by MediaVest and Kinetic's Zone.

The new landscape panels employ a removable and reusable mesh panel that replaces the traditional vinyl and allows passengers to see out of the windows.



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Tuesday 2 September 2008

Coke Zero rebrands to highlight Bond film tie


by Jemima Bokaie Marketing 02-Sep-08, 08:15

LONDON - Coca-Cola GB will change the name of its Coca-Cola Zero brand to Zero Zero 7 as part of a multimillion-pound global tie-up with forthcoming James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

Limited-edition bottles will roll out in the UK next month, supported by a global ad campaign and on-pack promotions which using the 'Zero Zero 7' strapline.
The activity, created by Wieden & Kennedy, will be in keeping with the tone of the film, matching Daniel Craig's 'edgier' Bond to Coke Zero's male target audience.

The drive marks a shift upmarket for the brand, which used Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Tweedy in its launch ads and last year put football at the centre of its activity with work featuring Wayne Rooney.

The deal is the first global marketing partnership for the cola, dubbed Bloke Coke, since its launch in 2006.
The global premiere of Quantum of Solace takes place in London on 31 October. The 22nd Bond film, it was directed by Marc Forster and stars Craig in his second outing as 007.
Earlier this year, Coca-Cola revamped the global packaging for its Diet Coke, Coke Zero and Coca-Cola brands to feature a simplified can design and the authentic 'Coke red' for the first time. It will launch a new design spanning the entire range, including Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero, across Europe this Christmas.
Coke Zero
In the 16 weeks post-launch, Coke Zero's UK sales hit £24.1m. Some attributed this to heavy discounting and a short-term 'novelty factor', and 62% of its volume sales in the first 12 weeks were taken from its sister variants; Diet Coke dropped 32% and regular Coke lost 30%.
It grew its share by 2.8% to 5.3% for the year to September 2007, still trailing Pepsi Max's 7.9% share of the market.
Source: Nielsen



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