Hallmark Launches Campaign To Push Police Dramas
The Hallmark Channel is launching a national advertising campaign to support the UK premier of US police dramas Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which will air on the channel next month.
The marketing campaign, which has been created by Skin Media, launches this week and runs until mid-September with television advertising across GMTV and a range of digital channels including Sky One, Sky Movies, UK Gold and ITV2.
The main campaign will be supported by a series of print ads, which will appear in Richard Desmond’s OK! magazine, as well as selected TV listings titles including Radio Times, TV Times and What’s On TV. There will also be an extensive consumer direct mail and trade mail push.
Below-the-line activity from Iris will see a special NYPD recruitment pack sent to contacts within the media industry. The pack contains a pretzel and a coffee mug together with a CD-Rom inviting participants to see if they are tough enough to join the NYPD.
Commenting on the campaign, Monique Daranyi, marketing director at the Hallmark Channel, said; “We are delighted to be working with Skin and Iris on the Law & Order double bill marketing campaign. They have both demonstrated an excellent understanding of our brief, objectives and target audience and the marketing campaign we have put together has the ideal tone and atmosphere for the two new series.”
The Hallmark Channel, which is owned by Hallmark Entertainment but run by Crown Media, has seen its share of multi-channel viewing increase steadily since its launch four years ago. It now attracts just over 1% of the available audience and claims to the fifth most watched channel in multi-channel homes.
Former Five chief executive David Elstein is rumoured to have recently entered into a bidding war for control of the Hallmark Channel and is reputed to have tabled an offer of around £500 million. The bid puts him in direct competition a range of other interested parties including News Corporation, Disney and Time Warner (see Former Five Boss Enters Bidding War For Hallmark Channel).
Hallmark Channel: www.hallmarkchannel.co.uk
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