Broadcasters don't expect millennial moment advertising boom
Local advertisers have managed to resist the millennium frenzy that has overwhelmed the rest of Europe.
Television stations here reported last week that advertisers have failed to deluge them with offers for spots right before and after the stroke of the new millennium at midnight on Dec. 31.
This is in sharp contrast to other countries on the continent. In Spain, for example, ads to be broadcast during the last 30 seconds of 1999 or the first 30 seconds of the new year will cost about zl. 1.13 million ($363,203), as estimated by Portuguese weekly magazine Visao. And in Portugal, public broadcaster Radio Televisao Portuguesa (RTP) will charge five times its normal ad rate for spots at this unique moment.
Polish broadcasters would like to be able to do the same, but said there simply hasn't been demand to justify New Year's Eve rate hikes.
"I think that advertisers don't care because the truth is that the impact of such a spot (to be broadcast around midnight) is really imperceptible," Maciej Morawski, strategic planner at tvn's ad office, said. "We have had only two advertisers inquiring about putting ads on at that time. It's only prestige, they can get no real gains."
Advertisers, however, seem to be more interested in buying air time during Christmas. Era GSM, which is running a promotional TV campaign until Christmas Eve, isn't "thinking at all of putting special ads on at midnight on New Year's Eve," said Renata Wasiak of D'Arcy, Era's ad agency.
Also Procter&Gamble, one of the nation's top 10 television advertisers according to AGB Polska, is ending its TV ad campaign on Dec. 25.
But TV broadcasters haven't completely given up on the possibility of cashing in on the millennium.
While not as frenzied as Western broadcasters, Telewizja Polska (TVP), Polsat and tvn, which dominate advertising budgets here, did treat this New Year's Eve in a special way.
While Polsat and TVP merely increased ad rates for the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, tvn came up with the idea to auction off advertising time over the internet. "We wanted advertisers to have some fun and at the same time, we intend to gain experience that could be used when selling special events in the future," Morawski said.
"We're not counting on extraordinary profit, though," he added.
The auction started last Tuesday. Ad agencies can register until Dec. 20 and are required to submit a minimum bid of zl. 500 for a slot.
The starting price for a 30-second spot, to be broadcast at two minutes after midnight on Jan. 1, is zl. 10,000. Current results of the auction can be found on a special web site (http://tvn-aukcja.tenbit.com) with updates every 20 seconds.
"I don't think that the auction will be dominated by our largest customers because discounts negotiated earlier will not apply, so everybody will be in the same starting position," Morawski said. He is not counting on even tripling the starting price. "If we get zl. 20,000 it will be a success," he said.
While tvn is one of three stations that together accounted for more than 94% of all ad spending in October 1999, according to AGB Polska, the station still finds it difficult to compete with TVP and Polsat in terms of advertising rates.
A 30-second spot on channel TVP1, during the four-minute and 30-second commercial break before and after midnight on Dec. 31, costs zl. 95,000. The same 30 seconds, on any other day at the same time costs zl. 8,000. "Prices are not low but at the same time we didn't artificially inflate them," said Jaga Kozien, TVP's ad office PR specialist. "The time is already sold but I didn't see more agitation among our customers than last year."
According to Kozien, some spots are especially designed for the occasion.
At Polsat, ad prices for commercial breaks at midnight on New Year's Eve are relatively low when compared to TVP, and don't exceed zl. 75,000 for a 30-second spot. Polsat has also prepared a special New Year's Eve program that will be run shortly before and just after midnight.
