NEW YORK: NBC Universal cut a deal with pump video purveyor Gas Station TV. NBCU agreed to pump its NBC Everywhere out-of-home content to GSTV-equipped filling stations. The pair described the marriage as a “new exclusive strategic advertising and content partnership,” but the meaning of phrase was not particularly clear. The upshot is that fuel-pumpers can now be distracted by NBC content in addition to AccuWeather and ESPN.
One possible strategic plus for NBC is Gas Station’s relationship with auto makers. The company has managed to cut unique ad-campaign deals with Toyota and Ford, both of which survived the industry’s implosion. Both carmakers also were among the top spenders on local broadcast TV for the first six months of 2009. Toyota spent more than $42 million; Ford, $32 million. Though both spent far less than the previous year--61 and 39 percent respectively--they remained in the game.
GSTV’s deal with Ford involved what it termed “echo ads,” an abbreviated summary repetition of a longer-form ad. GSTV and Toyota created a sort of TV show for the Prius. The company has 1,000 pump screens in 800 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia The programming is run on a tight wheel, since pump captivity is limited to the size of a vehicle’s gas tank. NBC’s news, prime-time, late-night and cable content is now incorporated into a four-and-a-half minute rotation with ESPN and AccuWeather.
(Image courtesy of Joe Thorn)
More from TVB on GSTV:
April 27, 2009: “Gas Station TV Releases February Metric”
Gas Station TV is one year into its Nielsen metrics, which look primarily at ad recall. GSTV said that for February, Nielsen found more than 80 percent of respondents recalled advertising on the network. One participating advertiser had a 77 percent recall rate, and 93 percent said “they felt the same or better about the advertiser,” GSTV said.
March 16, 2009: “Ford Repeats Itself on Gas Station TV”
Ford is doing an ad campaign with Gas Station TV where the contents of spots are repeated in a format the two call, “Echo Ads.” GSTV, the company that outfitted gas pumps with TV screens, says the Echo Ad is “a strategically placed 5- or 10-second spot that runs in addition to the advertiser's initial 15- or 30-second spot during the Gas Station TV network programming experience,” answering the question, “eh?”
