The concept
 In the search for new innovative ideas to add value to their channels, one of egta’s members, Publitalia (the sales house for Mediaset) launched a new concept called “All 21”. On the 23rd of September Publitalia launched a 60 second spot that ran simultaneously across all seven of its channels (Canale 5, Italia 1, Retequattro, DTT La5, Mediaset Extra, Iris and TopCrime). A spot aired at 9pm every night under these conditions can reach on average 10,000,000 viewers with an audience share of more than 30%. This technique also guarantees a broader target audience. This exciting idea was a great success amongst clients; the first month has been immediately booked by the major Italian advertisers and Publitalia will continue with the concept until end of the year, for which the space is also fully sold out. Publitalia thus offers its clients a daily opportunity to reach a significant number of people, a scale that can only normally be achieved during special events. As well as reaching a wide audience simultaneously, this type of 60 second break is also much less disruptive for the audience, compared to usual commercial breaks. To prevent zapping there is a countdown on the side of the screen showing the viewers that it won’t take long before their programme reappears. Some popular programmes like Stricia la notizia are being interrupted by a commercial break for the first time ever. On the first evening, the one minute McDonald’s spot reached 9,709,000 viewers and achieved a 39.9% audience share.
In order to reach the additional viewers who watch the content online, Publitalia created the so-called “All 24” concept, meaning that the spot will be available to this audience 24 hours after the initial broadcast, on Mediaset’s catch-up platform.
Why does this matter to egta members?
 Les Binet (Head of Effectiveness, DDB Matrix) recently stated at egta’s Annual Marketing & Sales meeting that “Reach beats targetability” when it comes to advertising effectiveness. This is precisely television’s strength, and it is therefore important that television channels build on this in an age of extreme fragmentation.
Creating these exclusive advertising time breaks that can be used only by one or two advertisers allows for reaching as large an audience as possible in a very short amount of time. Matteo Cardani (Deputy General Manager Marketing & Multimedia Advertising, Publitalia) also emphasises that it allows to “create a value from scarcity” which helps to monetise unsold inventory. Publitalia also developed an extension on the web that allows an even wider audience to be reached, through a distribution agreement with Italiaonline (sales house of the two top Italian web portals). They show the content with the original advertising clip and thanks to this distribution channel the viewership of content doubled in only two months from 6 million to 12 million per month. The reach is therefore spreading beyond TV viewership. |
