Sky Secures Buena Vista For Pub Advert Takeover

Sky has secured a major advertising deal with film distributor Buena Vista International which will see the company take out a full commercial break on the broadcaster’s dedicated pub sports channel, creating an innovative big-screen promotion for its forthcoming release, National Treasure.

The initiative takes advantage of the screens installed in tens of thousands of pubs and clubs across the country, currently viewed by an average of 5.5 million viewers per week.

Football fans watching Sky Sports’ coverage of the Barclays Premiership Plus match between Liverpool and Newcastle United on 19 December will see a full trailer for National Treasure during the broadcast. The trailer for the movie, starring Nicolas Cage and released on Boxing Day, will take over the entire ad break, dominating viewing in drinking establishments nation-wide.

Commenting on the unique promotion, Rob Tierney, group head at Sky Commercial Partners said: “For millions of viewers, Sky Pub Sports is already the closest thing to being at the match. Now it will become the closest thing to being at the cinema as we exploit this unique opportunity for event advertising.”

Sky Media has been selling bespoke advertising packages to brands eager to target the in-Pub audience since August 1999. A fortnightly survey by Continental Research, approved by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, recently showed that, on average, the audience for live football on Sky Sports doubles when out-of-home viewers are taken into account. Advertisers which have used the medium so far include Diageo, Ford, COI, Nike and Unilever.

However, a recent survey by the Newspaper Marketing Agency claimed that print media was more effective at targeting young audiences, stating that more young people in the UK claim to read a national newspaper during the average week than visit the pub. The study showed that 77% of hard-to-reach 16 to 24 year-olds read a national title on a weekly basis, compared with almost 50% that claim to visit the pub regularly (see Young People Prefer Newspapers To Pubs).
Sky: 08702 40 40 40 www.sky.com

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