Marketing Insights Newsletter

Special Issue: Entertainment

Cable Network Uses Architecture to Build an Audience

Article by: Stuart Elliott, New York Times

A CABLE network seeking to build its audience among younger viewers is teaming up with a magazine that knows a thing or two about building.

The network is Turner Classic Movies, part of the Turner Broadcasting System unit of Time Warner, and the magazine is Architectural Digest, part of the Condé Nast Publications unit of Advance Publications. They are joining forces for an elaborate monthlong promotion in October, called Architecture in Film, which is being sponsored by a furniture maker, American Leather.

The centerpiece of the promotion is a series of 19 movies on TCM on the four Wednesdays in October, all of them featuring architecture, buildings, homes or architects in central roles. The films include “The Fountainhead,” “The Heiress,” “The Magnificent Ambersons,” “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House,” “Skyscraper Souls” and “The Towering Inferno.”

Another element of the promotion is an eight-page advertorial section in the annual architecture issue of Architectural Digest. The section describes the film festival on TCM, advertises American Leather furniture and offers readers a chance to enter a sweepstakes with prizes like an in-home media room.
The promotion also includes events in Los Angeles, Miami and New York, as part of an annual Architectural Digest series known as Architecture Days; giveaways of DVD’s of films being shown during the TCM festival; a microsite on the TCM Web site and even new furniture for Robert Osborne, a TCM movie host, whose set is being refurbished by American Leather.

The promotion is a sign of efforts by the traditional media to broaden their reach — and thereby their appeal to advertisers — when so many makers of consumer products are paying so much attention to the new media.

“We’re always looking for innovative ways to extend our brand and bring our marketing partners new platforms,” said Amy R. Churgin, vice president and publisher at Architectural Digest. “The intersection of architecture and film is part of our DNA,” she added, referring to the Los Angeles base of Paige Rense, the magazine’s editor in chief since 1970, and features like the annual “Hollywood at home” issues, which inspired a book, “Architectural Digest: Hollywood at Home” (Harry N. Abrams, 2005).

Since last September, TCM, which is in 70 million cable households, has been stepping up initiatives to reach viewers who are younger than its devoted core viewership. The goal is to bolster the ranks of the network’s longtime older fans, who are drawn to its movies from the 1930’s through the 1950’s, with film buffs in their 30’s through 50’s who watch channels like IFC, HBO, Starz Cinema and Sundance.

Among the steps TCM is taking are an advertising campaign by Leo Burnett in Chicago, part of the Publicis Groupe, that humorously celebrates classic movies, and a deal with Hermès USA to sponsor “Behind the Camera: the Shorts Circuit,” a festival of short films that ran last Friday.

“We’re always seeking partners that can help us further build the TCM brand by extending it to a broader audience,” said Katherine Evans, senior vice president for marketing and enterprises at TCM in Atlanta.

“We feel there’s an inherent barrier to classic movies, especially for younger audiences, who don’t know the stars and don’t know the films,” Ms. Evans said. “So we look for whatever we can do to create a new point of entry, a new story, a new way in.”

Research among cable viewers found that “people with a predisposition to like classic movies also like the arts and design,” she added. “Those are the people we want to be in front of more.”

The architecture festival will have four subjects: “Architects on screen”, “The urban landscape” (films about Manhattan), “Home sweet home” (films in which houses reveal character), and “Reconstructing history” (four movies with extravagant sets).