Thursday, July 2, 2009

Does Turner Have a Winning Strategy?

7/1/09

As the upfront season progresses, Turner has announced a new sales strategy. Rather than selling their individual networks (TBS, TNT, CNN, etc.) as stand alone opportunities they are reaching across all their properties and selecting programming that reaches a specific target, and selling those as a package.

So, for advertisers seeking to reach Men 18-34, they suggest the following line-up: “The Office” (TBS), “Family Guy” (TBS), “Operation REPO” (TruTV), and Adult Swim (Cartoon).

They are also including their digital properties in the packages, which can be further customized with selected movies or other programs that advertisers believe are suitable for their audiences.

And, they are providing companies with creative help to develop advertiser-sponsored content, e.g. microseries.

Clearly, they have recognized that most advertisers these days are interested in niche audiences, not mass ones.

What do you think? Will advertisers respond?


Steinberg, B. (2009, June 29). Turner Lets Marketers buy Shows Rather Than Networks. adage.com Retrieved, July 1, 2009 from
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=137607

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I definitely think advertisers will respond positively to this new sales strategy. Advertisers will see that Turner is understanding the trends in marketing to niches and who better than the actual network to advertisers exactly what their market is watching and when.

Besides, why wouldn't advertisers want to reach their niche over many different programs. Advertising among these different programs will increase the positioning and the recognition of the brand. I think thats is only good news for the advertisers they'll get more for their money.

Laura

Jerry Oulds said...

I think this should prove highly effective. I think it just makes good sense to the advertiser. It almost makes Turner a "one-stop-shop" for commercial time. I really like the way it provides multiple opportunities to reach a specific niche.

Anonymous said...

I think this is a great system, mainly because Turner seems to have adapted to a newer age of media buying. Advertisers ideally should want to control their outlet as much as possible, and a company who can specialize in reaching an advertisers designated target audience seems quite appealing. If your goal is to make each advertising dollar really count, the last thing you want is your ad airing to a disinterested audience. Considering the diversity of shows that air on each network, its suprising Turner has only just come up with this cross-network, show specific concept now. I think overall this is a great move by Turner, and we should see more trends like this emerge in the industry.

-Megan Murray

Anonymous said...

Turner is clearly responding to the market’s need and in return I think advertisers will be more then willing to purchase their appropriate “package”. If I was an advertiser I would be thrilled to know that the money I am spending will be narrowly directed to my target. With mass advertising “out” and niche “in”….really, for what more could an advertiser ask? Also, I imagine that viewers will be thankful for these new advancements. I know I would rather see commercials for products that would be of interest to me then something that has no relevance.

Turner’s new sales strategy is brilliant.

What took them so long?

Tara