Hollis Sponsorship Bulletin

Orange juice brand Tropicana signed a new sponsorship deal with Channel 4 this week which, for the first time, covers programming on both the Channel 4 portfolio and UKTV channels. The seven-figure deal will run from the 7th of March to the 31st of December 2011, covering food programming across Channel 4, More4, UKTV’s Good Food channel, 4oD on PC, TV and PS3 along with sponsor branding on Channel4.com and GoodFoodChannel.com.

This cross network sponsorship enables Tropicana to be associated with some of the best of Britain’s cookery talent with chefs ranging from Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal on Channel 4 to, Gary Rhodes, Rick Stein, Nigel Slater, Nigella Lawson and Madhur Jaffrey on Good Food. The deal was negotiated by John Scurfield at OMD and the creative agency was DDB.

John Scurfield, Sponsorship Manager at OMD, Fuse said: “This ambitious sponsorship is the first time we have bought a sponsorship across Channel 4 and UKTV and the result is a great partnership for Tropicana which sees them on air every day for the rest of the year.. This bespoke package covers the best premium food talent in the UK and has created a campaign which combines a unique audience of hard to reach viewers on Channel 4 with vital daily presence and frequency on Good Food.”

Special K’s Chocolate and Strawberry variety of breakfast cereal will feature as the official sponsor of the popular TV show Desparate Housewives on C4 and E4 from September with re-runs of Series 6 and then from October when season 7 will begin.

In keeping with the storylines from Wisteria Lane, the Special K idents throughout the programme created by Leo Burnett London, will centre around a “delicious secret worth knowing” and shows the lengths women go to find out how others manage to look so great – in this case Special K is their secret.

Sarah Cumming, senior brand manager for Special K, said: “Desperate Housewives is a perfect fit for the Special K brand and to raise awareness of our chocolate and strawberry variety which is aimed at shape watching women who want a delicious low fat treat.”

The sponsorship is running from September 13th to late December 2010 , then restarting for part 2 of season 7 in early March 2011 and was negotiated by Maria Donaldson of Carat Sponsorship.

Kellogg’s Special K has signed a deal to be the new sponsor of Desperate Housewives. Its Chocolate and Strawberry variety of breakfast cereal will feature as the official sponsor of the popular TV show on C4 and E4 from September with re-runs of Series 6 and then from October when season 7 will begin.

Sarah Cumming, senior brand manager for Special K, said: “Desperate Housewives is a perfect fit for the Special K brand and to raise awareness of our chocolate and strawberry variety which is aimed at shape watching women who want a delicious low fat treat.”

The sponsorship will begin from September 13th  to late December 2010 , then restarting for part 2 of season 7 in early March 2011 and was negotiated by Maria Donaldson of Carat Sponsorship.

Notes to editors:
For more information or images please contact Louise Davies in the Kellogg’s Press Office on 0151 869 5500.

Lurpak  is to sponsor Channel 4′s new  teatime show, Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals in a  new six-figure deal conceived and negotiated by Carat Sponsorship.

The campaign will cover sponsorship of all Channel 4 and More 4 transmissions, Video on Demand (VOD) service accessible on www.channel4.com (4oD) and the Virgin cable network, as well as online branding on the programme website. 

The new 20 part series will start in mid October and run weekdays on Channel 4 at 5pm, with repeats also scheduled on More 4.  The deal is to run until the end of December 2010.

Specsavers has signed a six-figure deal to sponsor the national weather reports in the STV regions. Specsavers, which has stores across UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand has recently sponsored Channel 4’s How to Look Good Naked and The TV Book Club, but this latest deal represents the first regional sponsorship of its kind for the optician.  STV’s national weather report commands a nationwide audience.  Previous sponsors have included Esure Insurance, Sheila’s Wheels and Powergen.

Jon Crocker, group head at Specsavers’ creative department said: “Specsavers has produced an animation that is really appealing and a fun reminder of the importance of visual health.”

Last week saw Panasonic Consumer Electronics sign up to sponsor James Cameron’s 3D sci-fi spectacular Avatar. This week, retailer Sainsbury’s has announced that it is to sponsor a week’s worth of 3D programmes as part of broadcaster Channel 4′s recently-announced 3D season.

Under the terms of the deal, Sainsbury’s will be included in trailers promos for a couple of weeks prior to the launch of the 3D season. In return it will stock 10 million pairs of 3D glasses needed to watch the shows in 3D. Commenting, Sainsbury’s senior brand manager Alex Seligman said: “This is an innovative idea and we’re delighted to be part of such a big TV event. We hope customers will enjoy trying something new and we’re sure they’ll see the difference.”

Separately, business news channels CNBC has signed HSBC Private Bank to sponsor on-air and online activity in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. HSBC Private Bank will sponsor 60-second vignettes based around a 13-part series called Alternative Investing. It will also sponsor a dedicated programme page for Alternative Investing on CNBC.com, which will include episodes, market data and a guide to alternative investments.

For the first time in its ten-year history, Channel 4′s Big Brother will not have a phone sponsor attached when its new series launches this summer. Instead, series 10 of the reality show will be sponsored by Lucozade Energy.

Reports in the tabloid press have suggested that audiences on BB have got too low to interest phone sponsors – which like to build multi-platform content strategies around such deals. However the show is still a pretty big ratings puller. As such, it will give Lucozade a lot of summer exposure.

The deal, which also covers E4 spin-offs and the Big Brother website, was negotiated by Mediacom. Idents for the show were created by advertising agency M&C Saatchi.

In a separate development, car manufacturer Hyundai has signed a deal to sponsor movies on Five and its digital sister channels Fiver and Five USA. The deal, which started this week, runs until the end of 2009. Creative work is by M&C Saatchi – which won Hyundai’s UK ad account in October.

Mobile network 3 is to sponsor original comedy on Channel 4 in a deal said to be worth seven figures. The deal, which runs until the end of this year, covers Channel 4, E4, More4, Channel4.com and on-demand platform 4OD.

3 takes over the comedy portfolio from beer brand Grolsch. Shows which are covered in the deal include Peep Show, 8 out of 10 Cats and a new vehicle for Alan Carr Commenting on the deal, Alan Doyle, director of integrated communications, said: “Sponsorship of Channel 4′s comedy stream is a great fit for us as a brand. Like Channel 4, we like to push the boundaries of our industry. And while we strive for constant improvement, we try not to take ourselves too seriously. These values are important to us, and we hope this deal will help us share them with the 16-34 year-old audience that C4′s programming attracts.” 

The deal was brokered by Mindshare content division Invention and the creative was produced by Glue. The concept behind the idents is a stand-up set based on Mobile Internet. Comic Spencer Brown shares surreal observations about how people use the internet on phones, what they can’t live without and what drives them round the bend.

Pain relief gel Ibuleve has been named as the new sponsor of Channel 4′s long-running game show Countdown. The deal, brokered by agency Bray Leino, will run for a year and is said to be worth seven-figures. Bray Leino will also produce the sponsorship’s onscreen creative – which is based around anagrams of words associated with pain relief.

On the field and in the dressing room, it’s been a bad winter for top-flight English cricket. But this doesn’t appear to have dampened sponsor enthusiasm for backing the sport.

This week saw Betfair become the England & Wales Cricket Board’s official betting partner. The betting exchange is already an official partner at Test Match Grounds – but this deal will extend the range and depth of activities it can engage in. It will, for example, be able to introduce promotional activity at Test matches throughout this summer – including a presence at the summer’s showpiece The Ashes.

Betfair rose to prominence when it sponsored Channel 4′s coverage of the 2005 Ashes – which England won, thus sending C4′s ratings through the roof (and winning Betfair a Hollis Award in the process). Since then, the brand has worked with the sport in a variety of interesting ways; for example by taking the naming rights to the Sky Sports blimp – which provides live aerial coverage around Test Matches.

The other big cricket sponsorship story saw brewer Marstons sign up as partner of Yorkshire County Cricket Club for the next three years. The deal – which extends Marstons presence in the North of England – includes pouring rights, venue branding rights and the use of players for promotions.

Marstons has developed a strong sponsorship strategy around cricket in recent years. It is official beer of the ECB and, with Yorkshire, now has partnerships with nine top cricket clubs/grounds (including a partnership with Lord’s). It has also taken the partnership into media (via a tie-in with talkSport) and endorsements (partnering Matthew Hoggard).