news articles 22 July

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Seven woes
By Ross Warneke
July 22, 2004

Channel Seven's woes continued last week when it scored one of the lowest weekly ratings recorded by any of Melbourne's commercial stations in recent years. With just 20.4 per cent of night-time viewers, it only narrowly outrated the ABC.

In the past two months, Seven has recorded strong audience growth in Sydney, where last week it beat Nine in the early evenings. But in Melbourne, Seven is having a horrid run. Last week was Seven's 12th consecutive week in third place and it had only one show, Blue Heelers, in the week's top 20 shows, while Nine had 14.

The difference between Seven's performance in Sydney and Melbourne revolves around the 6pm news and the 6.30pm current affairs timeslot. In Sydney, Seven's news and Today Tonight are winning, acting as a springboard for the channel's later programs. In Melbourne, Nine's weeknight news thrashed Seven's last week, 502,348 viewers to 319,731. A Current Affair, which is in ratings strife in Sydney, triggering speculation that host Ray Martin might not return next year, is doing much better in Melbourne. Last week, it outrated Today Tonight, 441,341 viewers to 343,085.

The early-evening problem for Seven is even greater at weekends. Nine's Saturday night news had almost four times as many viewers as Seven's last weekend - 722,542 to 186,740. On Sunday, Nine's news more than doubled Seven's figures.

Further strong evidence of Seven's fall from favour in Melbourne came on Sunday when it had only one program in the night's top 10 - the pre-Olympic special, Greece Is the Word. Interestingly, the ABC had four of the night's top 10 shows, including the 7pm news, the 7.30pm documentary, The Truth of Troy, and the 8.30pm telemovie, Agatha Christie's Poirot.

Overall, Nine won last week's Melbourne audience survey with 32.1 per cent of night-time viewers. Ten was second on 24.8. Seven was an unusually distant third on 20.4, with the ABC, on 18.4, snapping at its heels. SBS had 4.2 per cent.

News programs on Nine dominated the top 10. Other strong performers for Nine included The Block, which continues to rate much better in Melbourne than in Sydney, where it is filmed. In Melbourne, 561,565 tuned in to the Sunday edition, compared to only 429,448 in Sydney. The special edition of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire featuring the contestants from The Block also was a big winner for Nine, almost doubling the figures for Law & Order on Ten (531,800 to 277,006), with Seven's Threat Matrix well behind on only 164,917.

But it was not such good news for The Block's Tuesday episode. It was thrashed by the first edition of Ten's second series of Australian Idol. It was a clash of the heavyweights. The Block and Australian Idol were the biggest hits on TV in 2003. But Idol's first auditions special knocked off The Block, 474,986 viewers to 344,910. Nationally, the gap was even clearer. Idol scored 1,688,191 viewers. The Block managed only 1,161,860.

www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/21/1090089209153.html?oneclick=true

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Telstra's fresh play for youth
Lara Sinclair
JULY 22, 2004

IT'S official: Telstra's attempts to be zany are over. The telco has announced a three-pronged strategy for targeting younger consumers following a decision to kill its youth-focused Communic8 brand in March - and there's not even a catchy tagline in it.

Instead, to woo younger consumers, Telstra will rely on special offers, a below-the-line marketing program and partnerships with brands far hipper than it could hope to be.
"Trying to be a zany brand when you're Telstra is not right," Telstra's head of youth marketing Matthew Willsher said. "Communic8 was a distraction. (Young people knew) it was Telstra. To really make strong gains we've got to stand up for who we are."

This week Telstra launched a new website called Blue Lounge to spearhead its below-the-line marketing program. The website, at www.telstrabluelounge.com, will offer "money can't buy" experiences to registered members through partnerships with companies that Mr Willsher said understand youth marketing better than Telstra.

Prizes include an STA Travel Round the World Tour, a week's work experience at Cosmopolitan magazine and a chance to go behind the scenes on The Footy Show. Other prizes and promotions will focus on Telstra's sponsorship of Network Ten reality show Australian Idol.

Mr Willsher said with much of the youth market using pre-paid mobile access, Telstra had little contact with a large slice of its customers.

The website aims to give customers a reason to build a relationship with Telstra and provides Telstra with a means of maintaining a dialogue with them via email and SMS.

Telstra, like other Idol sponsors, has created television commercials to run within the show. The campaign, launched last week, features two girls, Jen and Rachel, who talk about the show and Telstra's youth-targeted offers.

Telstra has spent $3 million on its Idol sponsorship and, compared with last year, will double its youth marketing activity.

The telco has been regarded as being weaker than rivals such as Vodafone and Optus in marketing its mobile services, for which youth is a key target.

Telstra is losing market share in mobiles: earlier this year it reported 8.5 per cent revenue growth in mobiles compared with 18 per cent from Optus.

Mr Willsher said Telstra had done a lot of work to develop offers designed to appeal to younger phone users, particularly in the mobile arena.

These included student discount offers featuring half-price short message service and multimedia messaging service, free text after 9pm and a promotion with Coca-Cola that would allow people to buy a phone for just $50 in conjunction with Coke proofs of purchase.

Telstra will target partnerships in the sports, music, entertainment and fashion markets as a means of attracting young customers.

Mobile phone penetration among 10 to 24-year-olds is growing rapidly. Telstra expects it to increase from 60 per cent to 70 per cent by the end of this year.

Competition is fierce, particularly on price. Vodafone is pushing its free picture messaging promotion, while Hutchison's 3 network kicked off a marketing campaign with its sponsorship of Big Brother 4 and launched capped $99 a month services.

Mr Willsher said next year Telstra will launch a mobile information service called iMode, imported from Japan, to compete with Vodafone Live, Optus Zoo and Hutchison's 3G content services.

[Inside Australian Idol]

Big names back Cosima
July 22, 2004


COSIMA De Vito flies back from the US today with her dream of working with legendary songwriter Dianne Warren fulfilled.


Big voice ... Cosima belts out a tune.

Apart from having the Grammy award-winner - who has worked with Celine Dion and Whitney Houston - write her new album, she has had American Idol judge Randy Jackson join her growing list of influential supporters.

Her first release will be a double single, with a new track, One Night Without You and the old Cold Chisel hit, When the War is Over on August 9.

Her album is out in October and she will be performing at the Jeans For Genes celebrity auction tonight.

The Daily Telegraph


entertainment.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4459,10205299%255E7484%255E%255Enbv,00.html

[Inside Australian Idol]

Hello, I'm on the bus - and texting for Pepsi
By Julian Lee
July 22, 2004


Text message marketing came of age this week when Pepsi incorporated the burgeoning technique into its global marketing strategy and appointed an Australian agency to write the blueprint.

SMS and MMS marketing is set to play a more prominent role in Pepsi's marketing as it attempts to involve younger consumers with its brand through mobile phone promotions.

The push in Australia and in South-East Asia came as Pepsi reported its highest response rate to a promotion - more than 10 per cent - with its current iPod every hour promotion, which has generated more than 500,000 entries from 4.5 million packs.

The promotion, which involves players sending a text message to enter a draw giving away a free iPod every hour, was created by Sydney's Communicator, one of three agencies appointed this week to Pepsi's global marketing roster. It will now be used in other markets in South-East Asia.

The fit between SMS and Pepsi's target consumers - the biggest users of the medium - is a natural one. Australia has 15 million mobile phones and one of the highest penetration rates in the world among younger consumers.

Since 1999 the number of SMS messages sent each month has risen from 7 million to 400 million, with voting levels for programs such as Australian Idol and Big Brother testament to the technology's popularity.

"I don't think anyone else has really rationalised it as part of their marketing strategy in the way Pepsi has," said Communicator managing director Damon Gorrie. "I would like to think it's a sign of things to come."

An English and a South American agency were appointed at the same time as Communicator to develop programs for their respective markets, Europe and Latin America. Each region learns from the others and SMS will be included in the Pepsi marketing "tool kit" for the next financial year.

Globally, sales of carbonated soft drinks have been flat as consumers turn to bottled water and sport drinks. In Australia, PepsiCo will spend about $25 million on marketing this year, with about $8 million in media advertising. It has about 10 per cent share of the $1.6 billion carbonated soft drink market, compared to Coca-Cola Amatil's 60 per cent.


www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/21/1090089216672.html