Media&Marketing: RTÉ managed to bring in €5.5 million of sponsorship revenue in 2003, according to its recent annual report. The station has identified this area as a key growth opportunity.
Many advertising agencies are advising their clients to consider shifting some of their traditional TV ad spend into sponsorship vehicles.
The station's largest sponsorship on TV is believed to be Pat Kenny's Late, Late Show, which is understood to be worth about €1 million a year. Another lucrative sponsorship is Eircom's association with RTÉ's weather bulletins.
While media owners sometimes find clients a bit too demanding when it comes to sponsorship, RTÉ has decided the attractions outweigh the disadvantages.
The station has succeeded in this area in recent years under sponsorship manager Mr Gerry McGuinness, who reports to sales and marketing director Ms Geraldine O'Leary.
This week, Dublin agency AFA O'Meara reported that RTÉ has set up a dedicated sponsorship unit, targeting 5-10 per cent of TV advertising revenue.
RTÉ is also offering the popular health series Health Squad as a sponsorship opportunity. For €95,0000, a sponsor can try to reach the programme's 357,000 viewers. A new series is due to begin in September.
AFA also says there are early deals to be gained on Ireland's newest TV station, Setanta Sport.
The station has exclusive rights to many English and Scottish Premiership football matches, plus rugby's Celtic League.
"Irish advertisers now have 16 TV stations to choose from when targeting TV viewers. Setanta Sport will only be available to NTL subscribers. NTL have 262,000 cable subscribers and 78,400 digital subscribers," the agency said.
O'Briens gets fruity
O'Briens Irish sandwich bars plan to open 60 juice bars over the next year, offering customers fruit juices and smoothies in existing stores throughout the UK and Ireland.
O'Briens said it wanted to become the juice bar market leader in Ireland and there are plans to open more than seven stores before the end of July in Dublin, Cork, Clare and Belfast.
O'Briens founder Mr Brody Sweeney said the juice bars were a natural progression of the original O'Briens offering.
'Newsday'numbers
In an echo of what happened at Smurfit's magazines more than three years ago, leading US newspaper Newsday admitted this week that it overstated its circulation in 2003 and 2004. The paper circulates in Long Island and other parts of the New York commuter belt.
According to US media reports, Newsday placed its top executive responsible for circulation, Mr Robert Brennan, on administrative leave.
The Nassau County District Attorney also announced the opening of an investigation into Newsday's circulation. The New York Times has reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the matter as well.
Newsday said that free copies, distributed as part of a promotion, were wrongly recorded as paid and some single-copy sales could not be verified, owing to what it termed "inadequate record-keeping" from an outside distributor.
Advertising in Irish
A little known Act passed by the Oireachtas last year will have major implications for advertisers working with State companies and agencies.
The Official Languages Act 2003 introduces a new range of obligations on State and semi-State bodies regarding the use of Irish.
Under Article 9 (1) of the Act, regulations are due to be introduced relating to the use of Irish in advertisements. Preparatory work is continuing on these regulations and they are expected to be introduced into law before the end of the summer.
Under these new obligations, State and semi-State bodies will be obliged to place a certain amount of advertising space in Irish language media. This may be 10-15 per cent.
Consequently lots of extra advertising space should go in the direction of Irish language newspapers such as Lá.
In response to these changes the Gazette group of newspapers, which publishes the Lucan Gazette and the Blanchardstown Gazette, has been appointed as the buying house for advertising sales to Lá. "This is an exciting opportunity for our company and feel it is a very positive step in terms of advertising content for Ireland's only daily Irish newspaper - Lá," said Mr Michael McGovern, general manager, Gazette Group.
Lá is the only daily newspaper in Irish. It is the only Irish language newspaper with an ABC audit, which stood at 4,404 at December 2003.
Personnel training
The Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI), which represents all the main advertising agencies, is to begin a new professional training programme for its members today. The programme starts with that most vital of skills - negotiation techniques.
Mr Brian Swords, chairman of IAPI's client service committee, which developed the programme, said ongoing professional development was key to the industry.
"Advertising is a discipline that utilises creative and business processes to create its end product. Co-ordinating and managing these processes to best effect is the greatest challenge new agency personnel face," he said.
eoliver@irish-times.ie
