Discover Boating ad campaign tips off

CHICAGO – The Discover Boating national advertising campaign kicked into high gear earlier this month, with Discover Boating ads beginning to pop up online during the 2006 NCAA basketball tournament, the National Marine Manufacturers Association reported in a release yesterday.

The ads are also prominently positioned in the April issues of several national magazines and the Discover Boating television-advertising schedule is set to begin April 1.

So far, the campaign is being widely seen with its banner ad placements on the NCAA tournament’s live streaming video Web casts. During the tournament’s first 24 hours of online video, which began airing March 14, more than 2 million users entered the site’s “waiting room,” where registered viewers are sent before they can begin watching games.

CBS SportsLine reports NCAA March Madness on Demand, the online video player providing streaming live video of the first 56 games of the NCAA Tournament, set an internet record for a scheduled live entertainment or sports event, with more than 268,000 simultaneous streams. In total, NCAA March Madness on Demand has already surpassed 1.2 million video streams served-all people who are being exposed to the Discover Boating messages.

“Response to the NCAA Tournament game Web casts has been great thus far, breaking Internet records for live streaming video views,” says Carl Blackwell, vice president of marketing and communications for the National Marine Manufacturers Association. “These prominent placements ensure that our advertising dollars are working hard for the industry.”

The Discover Boating ads are currently running at least two times per game online. Eventually, the campaign’s online advertising schedule will grow to include paid placements on Web sites such as CBS.com, CNN.com, weatherchannel.com, Google, Yahoo and MSN. Those Web site and search engine placements will begin the week of April 1.

The two television spots, known as “Grocery” and “Wave,” will also begin airing nationally the first week of April. The spots will run nearly 2,900 times on cable TV networks such as CNN, Fox Sports Network, TNT, USA Network, TBS, ABC Family, The Country Music Channel, The History Channel, Discovery Channel, Nickelodeon and several others.

And beginning April 1, TiVo subscribers will be able to see the Discover Boating television ads and “click-to-request” a free copy of the “How to Get Started in Boating” DVD.

The print campaign includes four different ads that began appearing on newsstands in mid-March, in the April editions of magazines such as Time (April 10), Popular Science, Sports Illustrated (April 17), Field & Stream, Men’s Journal, Outdoor Life and Family Fun. In these publications, the Discover Boating ad runs prominently on pages two and three, including a one-third page informational ad as a gatefold, which addresses the top three consumer barriers to boating.

Overall, the television, print and online advertising is expected to generate more than 1.63 billion total impressions, 766 million of which fall directly into the Discover Boating target audience.

• For more of the latest news, click here.