Behind NBC’s London Olympics sales pitch
Surpasses Beijing by dicing category sponsorships, but 3,600 hours of material means still more to sell

■ BY BRIAN STEINBERG bsteinberg@adage.com

THE ROAD TO THE Olympics is lined with challenges for an athlete. That’s true for NBC Universal, too.

While giants such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Visa and Procter & Gamble are some of the biggest sponsors of the Olympic Games, their agreements with the International or U.S. Olympic committees don’t require them to buy advertising on any of the NBCU networks, which are covering the events via broadcast, cable and digital.

As a result, NBC Sports Sales Chief Seth Winter and his staff must gear up for new ways to approach advertisers on each Olympics.

For this summer’s Olympics in London, problems included unloading a huge amount of digital inventory and a still-fragile economy that has financial-services and other categories less likely to invest Olympic-sized sums. For example, Bank of America’s USOC sponsorship ended in 2008, leaving the U.S team without a major financial-services sponsor.

With creative packaging, however, NBC has sold more than $900 million of advertising for the upcoming games, Mr. Winter said, compared with the amount sold for its telecast of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, in the mid-$800 million range. (Some ad buyers privately suggest NBC may have sold slightly less.)

“They are having a good market,” said one ad-buying executive with knowledge of the situation. But “the later part of any market is tougher than the first part. I think they have a lot

more inventory and a lot
more hours of programs to sell.”
To help get advertisers interested,
NBC has broken up sponsorships for
certain ad categories. A smaller pact can
be especially attractive if budgets are
tight or public scrutiny is intense.

“We segmented the financial-serv-ices category more finely than we did in the past,” offering sponsorships in retail banking, self-directed investment and wealth management, Mr. Winter said.

BLIMEY!

Despite a weak economy, NBCU has managed to sell more for London than it did for Beijing.

See NBCU OLYMPICS on Page 19

Five more join midcal
‘Ten’ lineup in bid to
lure back soda drinkers

Low-calorie 7Up, A&W, Canada Dry, RC, Sunkist
tested in select markets—and women are target, too

BY NATALIE ZMUDA nzmuda@adage.com

C2 and Pepsi Edge, launched in 2004, flopped. But some believe now is the time for this in-between category.

“There exists pent-up demand for
better-tasting lower-calorie products,”
wrote Bill Pecoriello, CEO of Consumer
Edge Research, in a report on the topic.
“Our research suggests that a mid-calo-
rie cola could drive incremental volume
for carbonated soft drinks, as interest
levels were highest among weekly con-
sumers of energy drinks, enhanced and
flavored water, ready-to-drink tea,
sports drinks and juice drinks.”
But mid-calorie sodas do
present a marketing chal-
lenge. While the propositions
of “regular” and “diet” are
well understood, it gets
murkier with mid-calorie
products. Consumers have
already had to adjust to the
idea of Pepsi Max, “Zero
Calories, Maximum Pepsi
Taste” and Coke Zero, “Real
Coca-Cola Taste, and Zero
Calories.” These types of in-
between products require
marketers to further educate
the consumer.

The updated roster of Ten products target men and women ages 25 to 49, The new Ten spot, which highlights 7Up but refers to all of the new brands in the closing shot, features a humorous message about compromise. A couple is shown hopping into a pink monster truck and watching a cooking show where the host is tackled by a

FOR SODA, SLIM IS IN.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group has added five sodas—7Up, A&W, Canada Dry, Initiative.

“The objective of
bringing this platform to
market is to focus on folks
who are regular carbonat-
ed soft-drink users but
have cut back on frequency
of consumption,” said
Layla Vela, brand manag-
er-7Up. “Consumption has
dipped over the past few
years. This is an opportu-
nity to bring incremental
business to the individual
trademarks under the Ten
platform. But it [also provides] great
stories and news for our retail partners,
so they can grow the carbonated soft-
drink category and aisle as well.”
Many in the industry are wondering
whether so-called mid-calorie sodas,
such as Dr Pepper Ten and Pepsi Next,
soon to launch nationally, could provide
the boost the struggling soft-drink cate-
gory needs. As consumers look to cut
calories and health advocates blame the
fizzy drinks for contributing to spikes in
obesity and diabetes, soda marketers are
looking for ways to attract lapsed users.
Earlier efforts in the mid-calorie space,
such as Pepsi XL in the mid-1990s and

7UPFORALL:

While Dr Pepper Ten was “just for men,” 7UP Ten is gender neutral.

See 10 CALORIES on Page 19

➜ ➜ TRU TV:

➜

CAJUN PAWN STARS
STORAGE WARS TEXAS
HARDCORE PAWN
AMERICAN PICKERS

HISTORY
CHANNEL:
A&E:

HAVE YOU SEEN THAT (PICK ONE)

Cable nets see safety in numbers, but knockoffs get lower ratings, give o

BY JEANINE POGGI jpoggi@adage.com

WHEN IT COMES to upfront choices for cable TV advertisers, there are certainly plenty of shows, but not necessarily many new ideas.

In back-to-back days last month, Oxygen announced it is developing a show called “Thrift Wars,” which follows hardcore thrifters in New York as they scour the city for vintage fashions and try to make a profit, and Travel Channel announced the program “Baggage Battles,” which focuses on people who compete to buy unclaimed airline luggage at auctions.

The programs will have plenty of
competition. In January, four cable net-
works aired about 10 programs in the
auction/pawn/repossession/pickers cat-
egory, according to a report to be
released today from CableU, which
studies the cable industry. History has
“Pawn Stars,” “American Pickers,”
“Cajun Pawn Stars” and “American
Restoration”;A&E has “Storage Wars,”
“Storage Wars Texas” and “Shipping
Wars”; truTV has “Hardcore Pawn”
and “Storage Hunters”; and Spike has
“Auction Hunters.”
These series were cablecast a total of
more than 200 times during the month,
with most airing between 14 and 17
times, according to CableU. “Pawn
Stars” and “Storage Wars” had 46 and
57 telecasts, respectively.