Weekly Spots

POSTED: June 13, 2011

(White Plains, NY) June 13, 2011 – According to Arbitron, Minneapolis, MN is the 16th largest radio market with a population of 2,749,000.

• The name Minneapolis is attributed to the city's first schoolmaster, who combined mni, the Dakota word for water, and polis, the Greek word for city. Minneapolis is nicknamed the "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City”.

• Minneapolis' collegiate scene is dominated by the main campus of the University of Minnesota where more than 50,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend twenty colleges, schools, and institutes.

• Six Fortune 500 corporations make their headquarters within the city limits of Minneapolis: Target Corporation, U.S. Bancorp, Xcel Energy, Ameriprise Financial, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and PepsiAmericas.

• In 1958, their basketball team the Lakers moved to LA. In 1993, they lost their Hockey team the North Stars to Dallas. Starting in 1961, the Twin Cities started the Minnesota Vikings as a NFL expansion team and in baseball the Minnesota Twins arrived when the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota. They have the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA and the Timberwolves of the NBA. In the NHL the Minnesota Wild call the Twin Cities home.

• Some notable residents from the Minneapolis area: Warren E. Burger, jurist; William Demarest, actor; William Orville Douglas, jurist; Francis Scott Fitzgerald, author; Jean Paul Getty, oil executive; John Madden, sportscaster; E. G. Marshall, actor; Kate Millett, feminist; Prince Rogers Nelson, singer; Jane Russell, actress; Winona Ryder, actress; Charles Monroe Schulz, cartoonist; Michael Todd, producer; and of course the bigger-than-life character, politician, wrestler and entertainer, Jesse Ventura.

MINNEAPOLIS SPOT TEN

In Minneapolis last week the #1 radio advertiser was THE HOME DEPOT with 639 spots. MENARDS was #2 running 524 ads, while WHITE CASTLE slid into #3 from #8 airing 401 announcements. The HD DIGITAL RADIO ALLIANCE bagged #4 with 394 spots and GEICO claimed #5 with 370 commercials. The AMERICAN FAMILY INSURANCE was #6 with 364 spots, while LOWE’S held down #7 with 362 spots. The SHANE COMPANY was #8 with 347 spots and GRAINGER (Industrial Supplies) was #9 with 297 spots. GRAND CASINO MILLE LACS – HINCKLEY put it all on #10 with 296 spots.

AUTOMOTIVE PARTS & SERVICES SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

This category has been great for radio and on top of the game is AUTOZONE with 20,706 spots. ADVANCE AUTO PARTS was #2 running 6,993 ads, while JUST BRAKES stopped at #3 airing 2,810 spots. JIFFY LUBE slid into #4 with 1,355 spots and PICK-N-PULL was #5 with 1,186 spots. AAMCO blew their horns at #6 with 1,119 ads and TIRE DISCOUNTERS stayed at #7 last week with 1,022 spots. MERCHANT’S TIRE – NTB – TIRE KINGDOM was #8 with 1,019 spots, while LES SCHWAB TIRE CENTERS rolled into #9 from #14 with 822 spots. Coming in #10 was BRAKES4LESS with 640 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

Still the one, THE HOME DEPOT ran 51,462 spots to dominate National radio in the USA. GEICO again was at #2 with 40,529 spots, while MCDONALD’S rose to #3 with 26,037 ads. VERIZON came in #4 with 26,035 spots and LOWE’S jumped from #14 to #5 with 25,309 spots.

Posted: June 13, 2011

Citrix was founded in 1989 by former IBM developer Ed Iacobucci in Richardson, Texas with $3 million in funding. Iacobucci quickly moved the company to Coral Springs, Florida since he lived there when he had worked at IBM.

Citrix was originally named Citrus but changed its name after an existing company claimed trademark rights. The Citrix name is a portmanteau of Citrus and UNIX.

Many of the original founding members had participated in the IBM OS/2 project. Iacobucci's vision was to build OS/2 with multi-user support. IBM was not interested in this idea so Iacobucci left.

The company's first product was Citrix MULTIUSER, which was based on OS/2. Citrix licensed the OS/2 source code from Microsoft, bypassing IBM. Citrix hoped to capture part of the UNIX market by making it easy to deploy text-based OS/2 applications. The product failed to find a market. This was due in part to Microsoft declaring in 1991 that it was no longer going to support OS/2.

Roger Roberts was appointed the CEO of Citrix in 1990. Roberts, a Texan, came from Texas Instruments. From 1989 to 1995, the company did not turn a profit. In 1989 and 1990 there was no income at all. Between 1991 and 1993, Citrix received funding from Intel and Microsoft as well as venture capitalists. Without the help of this funding, Citrix would not have survived.

In 1993, Citrix purchased the product "Netware Access Server" from Novell. It was a remote access application built on DOS and Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager. It provided desktop and applications from the server to multiple users in a similar way Terminal Servers still do. Citrix developed the product further and released it as WinView. It became Citrix's first successful product.

The company went public in December 1995. Citrix' key product families are Citrix Delivery Center, Citrix Cloud Center (C3) and Citrix Online Services product families.

But in today’s competitive online environment, they also are marching forward with major business products under the titles: GoToMeeting, GoToMyPC and GoToAssist.

They reported revenue of $1.87 billion last year with a net income of $277 million with growth around 16%. They have 5,637 employees.

On Cable in the last 12 months, Citrix ran 102,763 spots. The biggest month was last month, May 2011, with 15,569 spots.

Radio is a good place for Citrix to advertise and the last 12 months they ran 111,948 spots. They ran the most last July (14,279) and opened 2011 in January hot (12,801). It will be interesting how they battle Webex in the coming months.

It is very apparent from graph above that TV has not been one Citrix’s tools of marketing. They ran 4,864 spots in the last 12 months, with July of last year being the high with 2,116 spots. But since last September, they have done little TV.

POSTED: June 13, 2011

Reckitt Benckiser is a global consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest producer of household products and a major producer of consumer healthcare and personal products

It has operations in over 60 countries and its products are sold in over 180 countries. A bit about their history; both Reckitt & Colman were millers but this giant was grown by merger.

Colman's was founded in 1814 when Jeremiah Colman began milling flour and mustard in Norwich, England. Reckitt & Sons started in 1840 when Isaac Reckitt rented a starch mill in Hull, England. He diversified into other household products and in due course passed on his business to his four sons. Reckitt & Sons was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1888.

In 1938 Reckitt & Sons merged with J&J Colman to become Reckitt & Colman Ltd. The company made several acquisitions, including the Airwick and Carpet Fresh brands (1985), Boyle-Midway (1990), and the Lehn & Fink division of Sterling Drug (1994). Reckitt & Colman sold the Colman's food business in 1995 but still has some food brands.

Johann A. Benckiser founded a business in Germany in 1823. Its main products were industrial chemicals. They merged with Reckitt & Coleman in 1999.

In October 2005, Reckitt Benckiser agreed to purchase the over-the-counter drugs manufacturing business of Boots Group, Boots Healthcare International, for £1.926 billion. The three main brands acquired were Nurofen in analgesics; Strepsils sore throat lozenges; and Clearasil anti-acne treatments.

In January 2008, the company acquired Adams Respiratory Therapeutics, Inc., a pharmaceutical company. In July 2010, the company agreed to buy SSL International, the makers of Durex condoms and Scholl's foot care products.

Church & Dwight was formed in 1846 by two natives of New England. They branded their new product Baking soda, which is a trade name for bicarbonate of soda. And Baking soda is now found in practically every kitchen throughout the country and is regarded a necessity by millions of Americans. It was first prepared for commercial distribution by John Dwight of Massachusetts and his brother-in-law, Dr. Austin Church of Connecticut.

Dr. Austin Church was born the year George Washington died, 1799, in East Haddam, Connecticut. He studied medicine at Yale, and received his doctorate in 1823. After marrying Nancy Dwight, he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, and later lived in Rochester, New York.

John Dwight was born in South Hadley, Massachusetts in 1819. John Dwight and his brother-in-law, Dr. Church, started the manufacture of bicarbonate of soda in this country in 1846.

The first factory was in the kitchen of his home with baking soda put in paper bags by hand. Today, the absolutely pure bicarbonate of soda is processed and packed by highly specialized modern machinery and reaches the consumer never having been touched by human hands.

In 1847 they created John Dwight and Company and the Cow Brand was adopted as a trademark for Dwight’s Saleratus (aerated salt) as it was called. The standard package at that time weighed one pound. The cow was adopted as a trademark because of the use of sour milk with saleratus in baking.

Based on its popularity, Dr. Church felt there was a larger need for saleratus of baking soda and so he formed a partnership known as Church & Company, doing business under that firm name with his sons James A. Church and E. Dwight Church. He used the ARM & HAMMER brand as his trademark to identify the baking soda manufactured by Church & Co.

In 1896, the descendants of the founders of these two firms consolidated their interests under the name of Church & Dwight Co., Inc.

Today the use of bicarbonate of soda is no longer confined to the kitchen. It is used throughout the house, in every phase of housekeeping and personal hygiene. ARM & HAMMER Baking Soda, which was first prepared in a New England village, now is used the world over. Along with the baking soda, they also produce, sell and distribute Close-Up toothpaste, OxiClean, Brillo, Nair and Trojan condoms.

According to company reports, they had revenue of $2.59 billion last year with a net income of $270.72 million. They have 3,600 employees.

In the last 12 months, all the products of Reckitt Benckiser ran 583,480 ads on Cable TV as opposed to Church & Dwight offerings that ran 263,614. Reckitt’s biggest month on cable was September with 69,449 spots. Church & Dwight ran hot in August with 36,778 spots.

On Radio, Church & Dwight is really way up on Reckitt Benckiser in this medium. Reckitt ran 46,642 spots, while Church & Dwight cleared 248,981 spots. The biggest month for Reckitt was January (7,327) and the biggest month for Church & Dwight in the last 12 months was September (60,031).

On TV Reckitt Benckiser ran 69% more spots than Church & Dwight. Reckitt ran 799,011 spots on TV in the last 12 months, while Church & Dwight aired 244,247 spots. Reckitt’s biggest month was December with 84,415 spots, while Church & Dwight was hottest in the same month with 25,140 spots.

Posted: June 13, 2011

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