KIA WINNER IN SPONSORING MAJOR WORLD TENNIS EVENT
Do logos on a tennis court add up to more sales on the dealer lot for Kia?
For the ninth year, Kia is a major sponsor of the Australian Open, the first of four Grand Slam events in professional tennis. This sponsorship makes Kia the number one automotive sponsor and vehicle supplier of international and championship events for both men and women. The brand’s contract runs through the 2013 tournament.
Kia’s marketing aspirations are simple – if daunting: become one of the world’s premier automotive brands in the 172 nations where it competes. That is why the Kia brand is focused on international events with wide appeal like tennis and the upcoming World Cup. It is taking tennis, a popular nationalistic sport directly to the nations, many of which are the homes professional tennis players. It is a unique automotive international marketing event for a brand, in my opinion.
As the major sponsor of the Australian Open – both men’s and women’s singles, a first — gets a plethora (a wonderful Cosselian word) of promotional goodies from signs everywhere to ads to television appearances to providing courtesy vehicles.
The biggest bang for the buck, er… wack for the Won … for the Korean carmaker are the well-placed Kia logo signs everywhere on the show courts which means strong visibility during every televised broadcast of any match or game.
During the 2009 championship, 6,075 hours (yes, hours) of matches were broadcast and streamed worldwide. There’s an amazing ROI in the numbers: The Kia logos were seen 4,192 of those hours last year with a media value estimated at $524 million (US dollars, here, not Won). Media mavens I spoke to have said this year could be even bigger in terms of dollar value as more hours are being broadcast worldwide.
Adding to the presence of Kia is the company’s official ambassador, Rafael Nadal, last year’s men’s singles champion, who had to retire with a knee injury during the quarter finals to Andy Murray.
Kia also sponsors the Kia Amateur Australian Open a series of men and women’s singles and mixed doubles events in the Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Slovakia, Chile, Argentina, USA, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordon, Morocco, Iran, Singapore and New Zealand. Almost 20,000 teams participated with thousands of players.
Recently Mercedes-Benz USA became the third automotive sponsor of men’s singles at the U.S. Open (replacing Lexus which, in turn, replaced Lincoln); that however, is the total of automobile sponsors of tennis, one of the fastest growing sports in the U.S. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association notes 27 million men, women and children play the game.
Target targets DIY car cleaners
Maybe it’s the economy, but I’ve seen more neighbors on my cul de sac washing and detailing their cars than ever before. Saturday morning’s became male bonding sessions with hoses, buckets, chamois and various and sundry chemicals, waxes and shiny stuff tips and information as conversation. Target’s gone one step further, and has assembled a complete car care commercial. Click here: http://creativity-online.com/work/target-car-odor/18567
PCH’s famous Bixby Bridge featured in new stamp
Recognize that bridge? You've probably seen it in 100 car commercials.
California’s illustrious Pacific Coast Highway has probably seen more automotive ride-and-drive media previews than any other road, freeway, expressway, lane, path, avenue or boulevard in the world.
One of the most famous views, from just outside Big Sur, thirteen miles from Carmel, is the Bixby Creek Bridge. It’s appeared in countless auto commercials and is now the star of a new U.S. Postal Service Express Mail stamp. (Just hope your delivery doesn’t have to move down that slow and winding stretch of PCH, which is often moving at a crawl thanks to tourists in their Winebagos.)
The 78-year old landmark transformed tourism by paving the way to this remote wilderness, Big Sur long best known for harboring authors and artists, such as Henry Miller. This architectural marvel, one of the ten highest single-span bridges in the world (714 ft. long, 320 ft. span), now serves more than two million vehicles annually.
Completed in 1932, Bixby Creek Bridge introduced automobile travel to Big Sur and kicked off a tourism boom for travelers plying the 90-mile stretch of jaw-dropping seascapes and craggy coastline. Today, the region boasts nine State Parks, 15 inns and a world-class display of ancient redwoods, waterfalls and great beaches.
Factoid: the Bixby Creek Bridge was named after Charlie Bixby, an early settler in the Big Sur area.
Encombrer-découpage-commercial sensationnel de Peugeot !
There is no language difficulty in Peugeot’s sensational clutter-cutting-commercial! It’s a charming visual joy selling the French brand (my headline in a French homage) in a unique and dramatic manner that is unequaled in most, if not all, of our contemporary automobile commercials.
If you’re sick of running footage in a variety of outdoor settings from city to country and everything in between, ex-jocks with bad haircuts doing super salesman shtick — badly, computer-generated graphics that boggle one’s mind, and assorted other visual and audio annoyances click to http://creativity-online.com/work/peugeot-alchemy/18535.
Typos not included in this interesting type style book from Taschen
Taschen is the famous German publisher specializing in arts, avant garde art books weird biographies, light porn and great art, advertising and design books.
Click to http://www.taschen.com/lookinside/06712/index.htm to thumb digitally through a 300+ page book about type and typography through the first half of the last century. When print ads were the king of the hill, selecting type was more than a skill it was art. I often wish more websites were designed by type focused art directors not computer geeks. To buy go to Taschen.com
Another newspaper group in Chapter 11 are more to come
Media News Group, publisher of Detroit News, Denver Post, Oakland Tribune and San Jose Mercury News and Detroit News and its corporate parent — Affiliated Media Inc. — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection recently with a “pre-packaged” plan approved by lenders.
Last year the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press jointly announced a plan to cut home deliveries to just three days a week with the News the paper with the least financial foundation.
Under the terms of the plan, Affiliated’s management will turn over a large portion of its equity in MediaNews Group to lenders, while retaining control of the publisher through special “class A” stock, which empowers it to appoint board members.
In return for the equity, major lenders, including Bank of America, will forgive $765 million in debt, leaving Affiliated with $165 million in debt compared to $930 million before. That’s a helluva markdown.
Bankruptcies of newspapers have become major news. The biggest ongoing newspaper bankruptcy is Tribune Co.’s Chapter 11 filing, which marked its first anniversary on Dec. 8, two years after the ill-fated deal engineered by Sam Zell to take the company private as an employee-owned business, at a cost of $8.8 billion. In late November, the presiding judge gave Tribune – which continues to operate such major papers as the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times — until the end of February to come up with a reorganization plan.
But that’s not all. Philadelphia Newspapers, a subsidiary of Philadelphia Media Holdings, bought The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News from McClatchy in a $562 million deal engineered by ad and PR mogul Brian Tierney, in 2006. Shortly afterward, the former Knight-Ridder properties saw ad revenues plunge, leading to several rounds of layoffs and, finally, a declaration of Chapter 11, in February 2009.
Freedom Communications’ bankruptcy, which began in September, also seems likely to drag on into ’10. The publisher of the Orange County Register, Freedom Communications, initially hoped for a relatively quick resolution of its Chapter 11 filing with a “pre-packaged” bankruptcy plan that would turn over the majority of the company to senior lenders in lieu of $770 million in debt. So far, no deal.