Media&Marketing: While the Metro dominated the public transport debate this week, the continuing popularity of Luas is still attracting advertiser interest.
Advertisers will soon be permitted to wrap their slogans around a whole Luas carriage at a cost of €200,000 a year.
The outdoor advertising specialist JC Decaux is expected to introduce the wrapped carriages by May.
According to the Rail Procurement Agency (RPA) Luas is carrying an average of 70,000 passengers a day.
The Dublin ad agency Saor Communications wondered this week who might take up the space: "It will be interesting to see whether either of the two freesheet daily newspaper publishers compete to wrap any trams since they heavily target the tram users. Or maybe the new national entrant, the Irish Daily Mail, may try to hijack tram users eyeballs ahead of the freesheets."
Tesco truck adverts
Luas is not the only form of transport to be colonised by advertising. Dublin agency AFA O'Meara is reporting this week that agencies have been approached with a view to taking space on Tesco's fleet of trucks.
There are two distinct trucks available: the larger trucks which handle store deliveries and the smaller trucks which handle residential deliveries for their shopping online service. The cost depends on which vehicles are used, but the prices range up to almost €16,000 for a group of trucks.
ABC figures out
Today sees the release of the newspaper circulation figures for the second half of the year. The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures will finally give us some sense of how the new Dublin freesheets have impacted on sales. Some observers believe Metro and Herald AM have grown the overall newspaper market, whereas others believe the main losers will be the tabloids and possibly the Evening Herald.
As they only cover the second half of the year, we will not learn how the Irish Daily Mail has been performing.
Advertisers said yesterday they were also keen to learn whether the Sunday Tribune has managed to curb the recent sharp decline in its sales.
McConnell's loss
McConnells, the largest independent Irish advertising agency, could be facing a second major contract loss. The company currently holds the account for Masterfoods, the sixth-largest TV advertiser in the State.
The account is worth €5.1 million and has been with McConnells media buying arm, MCM Communications, for many years. The company has many brands including Mars, Snickers, M&Ms, Twix, Uncle Ben's and Dolmio. The company also owns major pet food brands such as Whiskas, Pedigree and Sheba.
Advertising sources said yesterday the contract had moved to Universal McCann, which pitched against MCM. Nobody from Masterfoods would make themselves available to comment yesterday. But if the contract moves from MCM it would represent a further seback to McConnells which recently lost the account for the National Lottery.
Format no panacea for newspapers
A new report from the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) says readers like smaller formats, but the long-term sales benefits can be limited.
Jim Chisholm, strategy advisor to WAN, said format changes were never going to be panacea for declining newspaper sales, but they were good for reader satisfaction. However he said the benefits should not be overstated.
Shortly after the smaller editions are launched, circulations rise by between 10 and 15 per cent. But after a year few titles are showing circulation gains. "The end result is, at best, a one per cent growth or for many, stable sales. Many publishers, having been faced with declines, regard this as success enough for their efforts," said Mr Chisholm.
He said the change in newspaper formats was unlikely to provide a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of newspapers. In the last two years more than 80 major titles around the world have changed to either tabloid or Berliner.
The change in format brought some benefits to the advertising departments of newspapers. For many newspapers it has allowed papers to use less newsprint while retaining their broadsheet advertising prices.
Mr Chisholm said it was a "myth" to suggest that just because a paper had a certain format it maintained a higher quality.
