The Channel 4 TV Planning Awards 2004, organised in association with Media Week, recognises the planners that deliver the most creative and effective TV campaigns for their clients during 2004. As with last years awards, there are two categories – one for those with a TV campaign spend of up to £1 million, and another for those spending more than £1 million.

Client/Brand	GSK NiQuitin CQ
Agency	MediaCom
Entrant	Janine Edwards
Client/Brand	Smirnoff
Agency	Carat
Entrant	Adrian English and Daniel Mogridge
Client/Brand	Hornby
Agency	BLM
Entrant	Katrin Schlenzka
Client/Brand	Nissan Navara
Agency	Manning Gottlieb OMD
Entrant	Ben Brown

Press Releases from the MediaWeek web site:

Hornby Campaign Steams Ahead

Train enthusiasts were wooed on a low-budget by BLM's strategy for a British toy-making icon

Until recently, model-train maker Hornby's core products had changed little and a perceived lack of innovation opened them up to threats from products with a more high-tech appeal. To bring Hornby into the 21st century, the company invested significantly in a new product: Live Steam – a real, steam-powered miniature train engine.

Hornby have two main audiences – dads buying for their children, and hobbyists. Consumer TV advertising was focused on train sets for kids in the pre-Christmas period. Hobbyists were a small and enthusiastic group who were reached through specialist press titles, as they were a profitable vein of regular collectors.

Live Steam was five-times more expensive than the average Hornby train set and this limited us to targeting hobbyist types. Specialist press was preaching to the converted and had limited reach of this wider hobbyist audience.

To ensure success, we had to widen the product's appeal to those who possessed enough passion and spare cash to buy one.

The product had three major positives to tempt lapsed fans of Hornby back:

• the product was a limited edition, which appeals to those with a "collectables" mentality
• the new technology had a novelty value
• the associations with steam evoked nostalgia and the desire to own a little piece of it.

Our strategy was based on a simple insight – that steam is a passion both model and life sized.

BLM approached Channel 4 and identified with them a series on life-sized trains, presented by possibly the most famous train enthusiast in the UK – Pete Waterman. The series was imaginatively called Trains with Pete Waterman.

The fact he had been involved in the official launch of Live Steam created a perfect link.

These programmes became central to BLM's recommendation for the Live Steam campaign.

We recommended to the client that they create a bespoke 30-second commercial showcasing the new product. This was linked to an extended version online. We bought the complete series in the centre break of the show and first in break each time. This was a rare opportunity to run in a series that would offer minimal wastage and was one of the biggest campaigns Hornby had ever put behind one single product.

As expected, the show was a huge success – with all episodes together reaching nearly 3.5 million train enthusiasts. The majority of this audience were potential purchasers and Hornby were able to reap the corporate benefit through public relations.

In summary, through astute consumer insight we were able to devise a highly bespoke strategy for Hornby, achieve a fertile coverage of the right consumers, with bespoke creative leading to a sell out of the product and a commitment to further investment from the client. Additionally, Hornby's share price increased by 10% over the month we were advertising.

This strategy won in the under £1m category in the recent Channel 4 TV Planning Awards, run in association with Media Week

Media Strategy - Millions join Lorraine to quit

Nicotine Replacement Therapy is a small but confused marketplace, consisting of three brands – NiQuitin CQ, Nicorette and Nicotinell – all offering the same type of products.

Consumers have difficulty distinguishing between the brands and this was an issue NiQuitin CQ needed to address.

NiQuitin CQ wanted to talk to quitters throughout their quit attempt, which was not the way the market had traditionally communicated.

Research showed that knowing that others were having similar experiences and going through the same ups and downs was a major comfort factor and motivator for the audience.

This is how NiQuitin CQ ended up with Lorraine – a 35-year-old mum of one, a "real life" version of the target audience who really wanted to quit smoking.

Lorraine formed the basis of an integrated creative idea and media strategy: NiQuitin reality quitting. Her real-life quit attempt was followed through traditional communications routes.

Because ads would change weekly (sometimes daily), it was essential a clear structure was delivered to ensure that the right people would see the ads regularly.

Most quitters set a date to quit smoking. On TV, Lorraine's was Monday, 13 September, 2004. For the week prior to this, the aim was to ensure as many people as possible were aware of this so they could prepare to join her.

Coverage was the key, an emphasis was placed on mass media channels – terrestrial TV and national press.

The significance of "quit day" meant there was a need to make a real impact.

Emmerdale was identified as a key big rating programme for the audience, so it was used to really showcase the big day - running a 60-second ad of Lorraine in the centre break.

From here on in, the aim was not to reach as many people as possible, but to reach a core audience on a regular basis so they could keep up with Lorraine's quit attempt.

Times and places were identified where Lorraine's message would be most pertinent. Firstly, key days of the week were isolated – Thursdays and Sundays.

Here there was a good dose of "reality", coming from programmes such as House Doctor, Pet Rescue and Airport.

Mornings are a particularly hard time for quitters, so GMTV was identified as the best hope of getting to the audience at this time of day. Every Thursday morning, GMTV viewers saw Lorraine's latest instalment.

Interactive TV showed NiQuitin CQ to be a true mentor and allowed people to register to quit with Lorraine, as did an online campaign driving people to Click2Quit.com (NiQuitin's individually tailored support plan).

Radio followed the pattern of the TV, running Lorraine's ads at the same time every day so people would hear her regularly.

Identifying two key weeklies read by the consumer allowed NiQuitin CQ to communicate with readers in an intimate, reality based environment, on a regular basis.

This strategy was the winner in the over £1m category in the recent Channel 4 TV Planning Awards, run in association with Media Week

Media Strategy - Real men go for Navara

Scrapheap Challenge proved a successful showcase for Nissan campaign

Last year saw the start of a new Nissan story. Bold, imaginative, and innovative marketing enabled Nissan to develop new category directions, as well as stretching old ones. The campaign for Navara pick-up is an apt illustration of this and signifies Nissan's commitment to achieving complete brand overhaul.

The role for communication was to drive sales among the core commercial (blue collar) audience, while simultaneously delivering wider brand reevaluation.

The challenge was to develop and find a space that could bring two potentially conflicting aims under one roof.

We worked with Nissan's research team and spoke face to face with pickup owners to find out what made them tick. We identified a core audience of real men with real tools doing real jobs and real hobbies.

TV could deliver both a targeted environment and a broad enough audience to invite brand re-evaluation. Sponsorship also meant creative could be tailored to the programme content to create a more powerful brand communication.

Scrapheap Challenge on Channel 4 had never been sponsored and 41% of our purchasing audience specially choose to watch Scrapheap.

The synergies between Navara and Scrapheap ticked every box – viewed by and starring real men with real tools doing real jobs.

Scrapheap would also deliver on the brand influence challenge, as Channel 4's top-rating early peak programme for ABC1 Adults and ABC1 Men.

The research influenced the creative tone. The target audience didn't like being overtly marketed to. Creative had to feature the tough good looks of the vehicle, but keep them engaged and reflect the values of Scrapheap Challenge.

Navara's was the most recalled sponsorship on Channel 4 among Scrapheap viewers.

It scored 21% prompted awareness of the Navara model and 48% prompted awareness of Nissan as sponsors.

The sponsorship also delivered against brand targets. Favourability scores (8-10 out of 10) moved from 34% to 41% among Scrapheap viewers. This rose to 47% among those aware of Nissan's sponsorship.

Total Navara sales were up 65.9% on 2003 and 24% higher than business plan predictions.

Crucially, during the on-air period, sales role by 171% versus the equivalent period in 2003.

The sponsorship has been extended on both Channel 4 and similar "toolbox" programmes on the Discovery Channel.

This strategy was highly commended in the under £1m category at the C4 TV Planning Awards, run in association with Media Week.

Media Strategy - Smirnoff best taken in small sips

Our task for Smirnoff Vodka's TV activity during 2004 seemed straightforward – to make the brand iconic. Efficacy would be judged though TV advertising awareness, and whether consumers agreed that "Smirnoff is a truly great brand".

We used Carat's Consumer Connections Study (10,000+ GB adults) to reach beyond demographics and provide inspiration in targeting. We found that our audience were light TV viewers with a high propensity to notice advertising via this medium.

As this group watches less TV than average, they are less overloaded by messages than heavy viewers. For the style-conscious Smirnoff consumer, advertising also functions to affirm their lifestyle and keep them in the know.

Our strategy was to place the ads only within "iconic" TV programmes, in order to implicitly position Smirnoff as an iconic brand. While the success of such a subtle alignment is unproven, we do know that advertising recall is higher in programmes that viewers watch closely.

Examples of iconic TV include the final episode of Friends, the premiere of the latest Bond movie, key Champion's League matches and cutting-edge drama such as Six Feet Under and Deadwood.

The challenge was to make sure that the campaign would still precipitate a shift in brand perception despite appearing in just select programming. The target list of "must-see" viewing among our consumers, would, with sometimes just two or three iconic programmes each month, necessitate a lightweight campaign.

However, as we were buying so few ratings it was vital that every programme delivered an attentive audience to build awareness with each exposure. Each programme also had to index highly for light viewers – as avoiding audience duplication was paramount if the low TV ratings levels were to cost effectively punch above their weight. Based on our research, we developed a target list of popular TV programmes which appealed to light viewers of television, such as I am a Celebrity Get Me out of Here Final, and Big Brother, combined with cult TV programmes such as Nip/Tuck, The Office and The League of Gentlemen on satellite TV. Last minute, topical programmes such as the Rebecca Loos Interview – an icon for a week – provided the finishing touches.

Both creative executions, "Russian Doll" and "Diamonds" were by JWT. The first week of the launch of each copy we aimed to reach 50 per-cent of the target audience. This was followed by a highly targeted but low-spend campaign the following month.

The results were exceptional: TV advertising awareness rose by over a quarter and Smirnoff's iconic rating overtook its biggest competitor.

Smirnoff said the iconic media strategy enabled the brand to outperform its year-one objectives after nine months.

This strategy was highly commended in the over £1m category in the recent Channel 4 TV Planning Awards, run in association with Media Week.