Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. has launched a national advertising campaign in conjunction with the start of television’s new fall season.
The campaign, intended to drive more consumers to TV Guide’s print, online and television offerings, is the company’s first national effort in years. It will feature ads on TV and TV-related Web sites as well as special editorial content in TV Guide magazine and local product giveaways. The campaign will run through the November sweeps.
“Because of the unique way in which we have designed this campaign and orchestrated its media placement, we will reach exactly the TV fans we wish to influence,” Alan Cohen, CMO at Gemstar-TV Guide, said in a statement. “We know that TV enthusiasts have a strong desire to fill the seven-day æwithdrawal period’ between episodes of their favorite shows. They crave fresh and entertaining information, the backstories and the side stories related to their favorite shows and stars, and they want it on their terms.”
Ads with the slogan, “We’ll Get You Through The Week,” will be tied to thirteen fall shows, including The Office, Ugly Betty, CSI and Heroes. The spots will air only during the last halves of those shows and will feature a countdown to the next week’s episode.
The campaign will tout TV Guide’s editorial content, videos, blogs and user communities as a between-episodes æfix’ for TV fans. To play up the “daily fix” theme of the ads, TV Guide is partnering with coffee shops in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles starting September 28. The partner shops will hand out free cups of coffee and coffee sleeves along with the current issue of TV Guide.
This new national push signals a relaunch for the entire TV Guide brand. The magazine underwent a redesign two years ago and now has a weekly circulation of 3.2 million, which executives are hoping to increase with this campaign. The TV Guide Web siteáwas also re-designed recently.
“The reason we’re doing the campaign now is we felt our [products] are in very good shape across the board,” Eileen Murphy, a spokesperson for New York-based TV Guide said. “We redesigned the magazine two years ago, and we feel very good about where our products are, so it made sense right now to go out and talk to consumers about the value of TV Guide.”
Cramer-Krasselt, a Chicago-based advertising agency, designed the TV Guide campaign.
