SATELLITE & CABLE: NatGeo reinforces global stance in advertising sales

National Geographic Channel's 24-hour distribution has surpassed 20 million homes in Asia, where the channel has sealed several regional advertising deals. The Washington-based network has signed its first global advertising and marketing deal with Toyota Motors, which will be the exclusive sponsor for its 52-episode weekly signature series, Adventure Starts Here. The multimillion dollar global marketing pact with Toyota will last for two years, and National Geographic Channel International president and CEO David Haslingden said the deal reinforced the network's global positioning. Toyota's global marketing deal will also extend to the media group's other entities, such as its websites and local marketing initiatives, as well as the sponsoring of another new series, called Next Wave. The Hong Kong Tourist Association has also formed a global marketing alliance with the documentary channel to promote tourism to the territory from within the region. The integrated marketing campaign will be running on National Geographic's media assets, including magazines, web sites and television network. Kicking off in October, the joint marketing campaign will last for "several years", said NatGeo Channel Asia sales and marketing VP Deborah Armstrong. As part of the innovative marketing pact, five National Geographic photographers and two Hong Kong-based photographers were assigned to film Hong Kong. A series of vignettes entitled "I See Hong Kong" covered different aspects of Hong Kong's daily life and culture, ranging from the Bun Festival, to Dragon Boat racing and the Flower Market. "Our audiences will see Hong Kong through the eyes of the world's top photographers, bringing to life the colour, diversity and contrasts of the territory and its people in a fresh way," explained Ms Armstrong. The network has also signed a partnership deal with Action Asia to launch the National Geographic Channel Action Asia Challenge in the region. Four one-hour adventure documentary programmes will air on the network covering Asia, Australia and Europe, as well as global terrestrial televisions. Youth involvement will be a big part of the Challenge series: both NatGeo and Action Asia will roll out regionwide programmes such as school seminars, roadshows and activity days. Ms Armstrong said the Challenge so far had found two corporate sponsors and range of other local sponsors. In addition to traditional advertising and sponsorship sales, she said it was important to "bring something unique to media buy". National Geographic's brand heritage was a crucial asset for advertisers which want to associate with in their branding campaign. "It (NatGeo Channel) might be a young channel here, but it's not a new brand," said Ms Armstrong, who added the channel had brought in 250 new advertisers this year. Regional advertisers accounted for just about 30 per cent of these 250 new clients; but dominated in terms of spend. Meanwhile, NatGeo will launch a 24-hour Portuguese language channel in Brazil in November, with the acquisition of the Superstation distribution. NatGeo Channel will launch in the US at the end of this year and it will roll out daypart and 24-hour services in Japan respectively in the last quarter of 2000 and third quarter of 2001, said its Asia managing director Ward Platt. The network plans to roll out more localised portal sites in Asia, linking up to its core nationalgeographic.com sites. India was the network's fastest growing market in Asia, with subscription jumping 54 per cent to 12 million homes. Distribution in Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia also saw a significant growth to respectively 1.1 million, 4.8 million and 375,000 homes. Ms Armstrong said rating figures from Peoplemeters in Taiwan and India showed that NatGeo was one of the most popular cable channels. "The channel will continue to package and version its products to suit specific markets. This can be in the form of voice-overs, localised subtitling and local interstitial," said Mr Platt. The channel's global proposition with a network of media assets offer clients an integrated communications solution, as Ms Armstrong noted it was unusual now for clients to just buy the spots, as advertisers demand more innovative strategy. Launched two years ago, Ms Armstrong said NatGeo had been taking full initiative to promote the dynamic, fast paced, adventure, aspiration and entertaining aspects of the network, which is not just a documentary station. NatGeo will increase its science programming, which is popular among advertisers, as well as blockbuster event such as the three-hour Saturday Unlimited show in a bid to enhance the entertainment aspects of the network.

Sign In

Trouble signing in?

Reset Password: Click here

Contact Customer Support at

Customerservice@campaignasia.com