Crazy Quilt: Media conglomerates’ marketing units mix assets and ideas.
American Suzuki wanted to use more than TV’s “spots and dots” this year in introducing its new line of SUVs.
The Brea, CA-based auto maker is giving dealership visitors the chance to vote on Heisman Trophy recipients in a program with Time, Inc. and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. that involves a whopping 13 Time Warner properties.
The athlete who gets the most votes from dealership visitors gains one real vote in the official Heisman selection process. Suzuki’s ad agency, Asher & Partners, Los Angeles, developed the $35 million, three-year campaign in conjunction with the Time Warner companies.
The expansive cross-property effort includes an advertorial series in five Time, Inc. magazines including Life, People, and Sports Illustrated; vignettes of past Heisman winners broadcast weekly on CNN Sports (with edited versions featured on college stadium Jumbotrons on Saturday afternoons); the vignettes plus on-screen slides shown at Warner Brothers-owned theaters; advertising at 1,500 gates in 34 major airports through the CNN Airport Network; and content on CNN/SI.com.
Turner’s Marketing Solutions Group (TMSG) and Global Client Solutions (GCS) units worked with a counterpart office at Time to devise the “Heisman Heroes” platform after American Suzuki asked for an idea on how to use its Heisman sponsorship (obtained through Downtown Athletic Club, New York City, which gives out the award.)
“We had an ongoing relationship with Time and with the readers of Time publications,” says Asher & Partners director of media services Leah Mitchell. Suzuki was looking for impact on multiple levels that included the local dealers, she says.
TMSG, the “idea factory,” and GCS, which handles client relationships and cross-platform sales, employ a total staff of 20 with backgrounds in marketing, not media sales, says GCS senior vp Mike Teicher. The goal for Turner is incremental revenue and “stronger, deeper” relationships with clients, Teicher says.
Marketing Zone
Marketers are just as eager to hop in bed with the media in order to get at customers. “You need collaboration across all parts of the wheel to touch the consumer,” says Ed Erhard president of ESPN ABC Sports Customer Marketing and Sales. “Marketers want to broaden their media and marketing choices with programs that break through to current and potential consumers.”
The new division of Walt Disney Co.-owned ESPN and ABC combines two strong brand names in sports and boasts such assets as four ESPN networks, radio, ESPN.com, and ESPN The Magazine, notes Erhardt, the former group publisher of Advertising Age. It’s task is to develop integrated proprietary marketing packages from the ground up for sale at full price.
“This takes us out of the TV ad market and into the marketing business, with sports as our calling card. I want us to be thought of as the McKinsey of sports, with the best media assets available,” says Erhardt. “Our goal is to provide the customer with good ideas.”
The best ideas often win, with or without 30-second spots.
