Weekly Spots

POSTED: July 5, 2010

(White Plains, NY) July 5, 2010 - According to Arbitron, Columbus, Ohio is the 36th market with a population of 1,459,700.

• Columbus is the capital of Ohio and was named after explorer Christopher Columbus. The city of Columbus was founded in 1812.
• With the strength of the post-WWI economy, a construction boom occurred in the 1920s, resulting in a new Civic Center, the Ohio Theatre, the American Insurance Union Citadel, and, to the north, a massive new Ohio Stadium.
• Last Friday, Columbus hosed Red, White, and Boom, the largest fireworks display in the Midwest. They also held the 27th annual Doo Dah Parade, a nonsensical satire of ordinary parades presented by the gay community on July 4th this year.
• Columbus is the home of two public colleges: The Ohio State University, the largest college campus in the United States and Columbus State Community College. Private institutions located in Columbus include the Columbus College of Art and Design, DeVry University, Ohio Institute of Health Careers, and Franklin University.
• Columbus is widely known for The Ohio State Buckeyes college football team. The team is a member of the NCAA's Big Ten Conference, and plays home games at Ohio Stadium. The OSU-Michigan football game is the final game of the regular season and is played in November each year. ESPN has recognized the OSU-Michigan rivalry as the greatest rivalry in all of sports in the USA. "Buckeye fever" permeates Columbus culture year-round and forms a major part of Columbus's cultural identity. In short, if you live in Columbus, you bleed scarlet and gray.
• Famous people from Columbus: actress Beverly D'Angelo, wrestler Randy Savage, boxer James “Buster” Douglas, PGA great Jack Nicklaus, football great Archie Griffin, Yankee Nick Swisher, and writer R. L. Stine.

COLUMBUS SPOT TEN

The #1 advertiser in Columbus, Ohio last week was THE HOME DEPOT with 1,171 spots. GEICO came in #2 running 653 ads, while AUTOZONE was #3, up from #17, airing 608 announcements. SAFELITE AUTOGLASS was #4 with 531 spots and PEPSI got #5 with 512 commercials. BAYER CROPSCIENCE (Farm product) was #6 with 490 spots, while KROGER came in #7 with 438 spots. The US DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION was #8 with 414 ads and ROSATI WINDOWS closed at #9 with 382 spots. MCDONALD’S was #10 with 371 spots.

HOTEL & RESORT SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

The #1 advertiser in this category was the GREAT WOLF LODGE with 4,152 ads. SUPER 8 was #2, up from #7, with 1,321 spots, while COMFORT INN was #3 with 675 spots. AMERICAS BEST VALUE INN was #4 with 328 spots and MOTEL 6 was #5 with 318 ads. LA QUINTA INNS & SUITES dropped to #6 with 257 spots, while LAKE LANIER ISLANDS RESORT jumped #11 to #7 with 196 ads. MONTEREY PLAZA HOTEL & SPA jumped to #8 with 190 spots and SIRATA BEACH RESORT & CONFERENCE CENTER was #9 airing 166 announcements. GAYLORD NATIONAL was #10 with 162 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

THE HOME DEPOT displaces GEICO for the #1 spot this week. THE HOME DEPOT had a monster week running 74,884 spots, while GEICO ran 35,697 ads to place #2. SAFELITE AUTOGLASS was #3 with 32,277 spots and AUTOZONE was #4 with 26,636 commercials. Locking up #5 was MCDONALD’S with 25,997 spots.

Posted: July 5, 2010

Sears, was first named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of mid-Range department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Roebuck in the late 19th century. Formerly a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Sears merged with Kmart in early 2005, creating the Sears Holdings Corporation.

Richard Warren Sears was a railroad station agent in North Redwood, Minnesota when he received an impressive shipment of watches from a Chicago jeweler which were unwanted by a local jeweler. Sears purchased them himself, sold the watches for a tidy profit to other station agents up and down the line, and then ordered more for resale. Soon he started a business selling watches through mail order catalogues. The next year, he moved to Chicago, Illinois where he met Alvah C. Roebuck, who joined him in the business. In 1893, the corporate business name became Sears, Roebuck and Co.

The first Sears retail store opened in Chicago on February 2, 1925 in the Merchandise building (in a portion of the company's headquarters at Homan Avenue and Arthington Street). This store included an optical shop and a soda fountain. The first freestanding retail store opened October 5, 1925 in Evansville, Indiana.

From its mail order beginnings, the company grew to become the largest retailer in the United States by the mid-20th century, and its catalogs became famous. Competition and changes in the demographics of its customer base challenged the company after World War II as its rural and inner city strongholds shrank and the suburban markets grew. Eventually its catalog program was largely discontinued.

Sears Holding Corporation has 2,300 full-line and 1,250 specialty stores in the U.S. and 390 stores in Canada.

According to public records, Sears created revenues of $44.04 billion with a net income of $235.00 million. They have 322,000 employees.

Sears ran most of their spots on Cable, with 584,430 in the last 12 months. May was their biggest month with 70,372 ads.

Radio was the second most used media with 315,250 spots.

TV spot placement totaled 169,619 for the last 12 months with last December being the biggest month with 21,543 spots.

POSTED: July 5, 2010

Toyota Motor Corporation is a multinational corporation headquartered in Japan, and the world's largest automaker. Toyota employs approximately 316,000 people worldwide.

In 1934, while still a department of Toyota Industries, it created its first product Type A engine and in 1936 its first passenger car the Toyota AA.

The company was eventually founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. Toyota also owns and operates Lexus and Scion brands and has a majority shareholding stake in Daihatsu and Hino Motors, and minority shareholdings in Fuji Heavy Industries, Isuzu Motors, and Yamaha Motors. The company includes 522 subsidiaries.

Toyota is headquartered in Toyota City and Nagoya (both in Aichi), and in Tokyo. In addition to manufacturing automobiles, Toyota provides financial services through its division Toyota Financial Services and also builds robots. Toyota Industries and Finance divisions form the bulk of the Toyota Group, one of the largest conglomerates in the world.

Toyota has introduced new technologies including one of the first mass-produced hybrid gas-electric vehicles, of which it says it has sold 1 million globally (2007-06-07), Advanced Parking Guidance System (automatic parking), a four-speed electronically controlled automatic with buttons for power and economy shifting, and an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Toyota's marketing efforts have focused on emphasizing the positive experiences of ownership with slogans such as "Oh, what a feeling!" (1978–1985), "Who could ask for anything more" (1986–1989), "I love what you do for me, Toyota!" (1990–1997), "Everyday" (1997–2000)", "Get the feeling!" (2001–2004), "Moving Forward" (2004–2010), but recently shifted to “Safety First” as the theme due to their massive recall situation due to a gas pedal-acceleration problem.

According to public figures, they had revenues of revenues of $207.85 billion with a loss of $-4.42 billion. They have 320,808 employees.

Nissan Motor Company, Ltd., shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Japan. It was formerly a core member of the Nissan Group, but has become more independent after its restructuring under Carlos Ghosn (CEO).

Founded in 1934, Nissan built trucks, airplanes, and engines for the Japanese military. The company's main plant was moved to China after land there was captured by Japan.

It formerly marketed vehicles under the "Datsun" brand name and is one of the largest car manufacturers. The company's global headquarters are located in Nishi-ku, Yokohama. In 1999, Nissan entered an alliance with Renault S.A. of France, which owns 44.4% of Nissan as of 2008. Nissan is among the top three Asian (also known as the Japanese Big 3 Automakers) rivals of the "Big Three" in the U.S. Currently it is the third largest Japanese car manufacturer. It also manufactures the Infiniti luxury brand. The Nissan VQ engines, of V6 configuration, have featured among Ward's 10 Best Engines for 14 straight years, since the award's inception.

In the 1950s, Nissan made a conscious decision to expand into worldwide markets. Nissan management realized their Datsun small car line would fill an unmet need in markets such as Australia and the world's largest car market, the United States. In 1958 they first showed cars at the 1959 Los Angeles auto show, and sold a few cars that year in the United States.

From 1993-2002 Nissan partnered with Ford to market a consumer-friendly minivan: The Mercury Villager and the Nissan Quest. The two minivans were manufactured with all the same parts and were virtually identical aside from several cosmetic differences. In 2002, Ford discontinued the Villager to make room for the future Freestar and Monterey. Nissan brought out a new version of the Quest in 2004, which was designed in house and no longer related to any Ford model.

Less publicized, but just as critical to their growth, on March 2, 2010 Nissan announced the recall of 540,000 vehicles to fix brake pedals and gas gauges. The brake pedal recall affected 179,000 vehicles in the US and about 26,000 in the Middle East, Canada, Russia and several other countries.

In May, 2010, the company claimed an increase of 24.1 percent, compared with May 2009. Worldwide they have 175,766 employees.

On Cable, Toyota almost doubles Nissan with 564,047 spots in the last 12 months to Nissan’s 287,088.

On Radio, Toyota ran 1,079,073 spots against Nissan’s 652,676 ads

On TV, Toyota has been blitzing its “Safety First” campaign with 728,260 spots to Nissan’s 214,059 ads in the last 12 months.

Posted: July 5, 2010

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