C5 Unveils Autumn Marketing Campaign

Channel 5 is about to embark on an intensive marketing campaign to promote its autumn schedule (see From Big Brother To Big Sales Houses, Channel 5 Prepares For Battle). In keeping with the “uniquely ballsy and irreverent personality” of the channel, the campaign will feature clumps of grinning sperm and graffiti’d celebrities across national poster sites and daily press.

Created by Walsh Trott Chick Smith, it features a range of paparazzi style photographs of famous people, ranging from Bill Clinton to George Best, with comic smiles graffiti’d onto their faces in reaction to Channel 5 programmes. Thus Margaret Thatcher is shown responding to Xena: Warrior Princess, William Hague to Miracles of Faith and Linford Christie to Lethal Weapon.

Grinning sperm will promote the premiere of Boogie Nights and Henry VIII will support new drama series Headless.

In a fundamental shift in its media strategy the bulk of its advertising will be concentrated across one month of intensive activity, rather than across the entire autumn season, as in previous years. David Bainbridge, deputy marketing director of Channel 5, said: “Ideally we’d like to be on telly, but that’s simply not feasible with our budgets.

“Trying to build a brand using print is a hell of a task. We felt the best way of breaking through to the maximum number of people was to concentrate our spend into a month, when we would never be out of people’s faces.”

Channel 5: 020 7550 5555