Weekly Spots

POSTED: October 31, 2011

(White Plains, NY) October 31, 2011 - According to Arbitron, Columbia, SC is the 89th radio market with a population of 557,300. One of Columbia’s nicknames is "City of Dreams".

• Columbia is the primary city of the Midlands region of South Carolina and lies at the confluence of two rivers, the Saluda and the Broad, which merge at Columbia to form the Congaree River.

• There was considerable argument over the name for the new city. One legislator insisted on the name Washington, but Columbia, a poetic reference to Christopher Columbus, won out by a vote of 11-7 in the state Senate.

• Columbia was a “designed city” based on the belief that the dangerous and pesky mosquito could not fly more than 60 feet without dying of starvation along the way. So, the streets were either 100 or 150 feet wide. They still have wide streets.

• Columbia received its first charter as a town in 1805. By 1816, there were 250 homes in the town and a population over 1,000. Columbia had no paved streets until 1908, when 17 blocks of Main Street were surfaced. On February 17, 1865, during the Civil War, much of Columbia was destroyed by Union troops under the command of General William Tecumseh Sherman.

• Columbia has grown from being a textile center to more high tech achievements: major employers include the South Carolina state government, Palmetto Health hospital system, Blue Cross Blue Shield of SC, Palmetto GBA, and the University of South Carolina. Fort Jackson, the U.S. Army's largest and most active initial entry training installation. They also have major offices of Humana/TriCare, United Parcel Service, Square D, CMC Steel, Spirax Sarco, Michelin, International Paper, Pirelli Cables, Honeywell, Westinghouse Electric, Harsco Track Tech, Trane, Intertape Polymer Group, Union Switch & Signal, Solectron, and Bose Corporation Technology.

• Major Universities include: the University of South Carolina, Carnegie Foundation of the Advancement of Teaching, Allen University, Benedict College, Columbia College, Columbia International University, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Midlands Technical College, Remington College and South Carolina School of Leadership.

• Famous people from Columbia: actresses Allison Munn and Mary-Louise Parker; NFL’s Richard Seymour; NBA’s Jermaine O’Neal; rock band Crossfade and Hootie & the Blowfish (Darius Rucker).

COLUMBIA SPOT TEN

Last week in Columbia the #1 radio advertiser was THE HOME DEPOT with 818 spots. Coming in #2 was GALEANA CHRYSLER JEEP KIA with 666 commercials, while GEICO ran 531 ads to hold down #3. JT’S KIA landed at #4 running 493 spots and PITT STOP stayed at #5 airing 378 announcements. KROGER was #6 with 301 spots, while ALLSTATE was #7 with 292 spots. WELLS FARGO traveled from #12 to #8 with 287 spots and JIM HUDSON HYUNDAI took #9 with 283 ads. Coming in #10 was ONEMAIN FINANCIAL with 278 spots.

CONVENIENCE STORES SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

What a great American institution, the convenience store. #1 last week was 7-ELEVEN with 878 spots. WAWA leaped from #30 to #2 with 834 spots, while KANGAROO EXPRESS parked at #3 running 666 ads. PITT STOP stayed at #4 with 378 commercials and EASY TRIP took #5 airing 233 announcements. HOLIDAY STATIONSTORES celebrated at #6 with 221 spots, while GETGO got #7 with 216 spots. HOT SPOT warmed #8 by running 210 spots and SPEEDWAY passed #10 to finish at #9 with 176 spots. CIRCLE K rounded out the pack with 144 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

Up from #3 and taking back #1 last week was THE HOME DEPOT with 54,240 spots. Coming in #2 was GEICO with 38,981, which is taking some heat from #3 STATE FARM with their 31,631 spots. MCDONALD’S kept #4 with 27,833 spots and WAL-MART is back in the top #5 with 23,579 spots.

Posted: October 31, 2011

Bose Corporation was founded in 1964 by Dr. Amar G. Bose, then professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As an MIT grad student in the 1950s, Dr. Bose decided to purchase a new stereo system. He was disappointed to find that speakers with impressive technical specifications failed to reproduce the realism of a live performance.

Bose is a privately held corporation based in Framingham, Massachusetts, that focused its efforts on extensive research in the fields of speaker design and psychoacoustics—the human perception of sound— and this knowledge led to the 901® Direct/Reflecting® speaker system in 1968. They develop and manufacture audio devices (including speakers, amplifiers and headphones for home use; and automotive sound systems for luxury cars).

Fourteen years of research led to the development of acoustic waveguide speaker technology found in their Wave® radio, Wave® music system and Acoustic Wave® music systems.

Auditioner® audio demonstrator technology removed the guesswork from sound system design for arenas and other large venues. It allows builders, architects and facility managers to hear precisely what a Bose® system will sound like in their building, before any equipment is installed, even if the building only exists as a blueprint.

Bose Lifestyle® systems provide a welcome alternative to conventional component-based systems by offering fully integrated home entertainment solutions. Lifestyle® systems deliver award-winning performance and elegance from elements specifically engineered to work together.

Integrated systems account for the acclaimed performance of Bose automotive sound systems and Acoustic Noise Cancelling® headsets. The revolutionary Bose suspension system and ElectroForce® linear motion system rely on proprietary Bose software and hardware.

In 2004 Bose started the ElectroForce Systems Group, which provides materials testing and durability simulation instruments to research institutions, universities, medical device companies and engineering organizations worldwide.

Bose systems can be found everywhere from the Olympic games to the Sistine Chape; from NASA space shuttles to the Japan National Theatre. Bose sells its products at about 125 factory and showcase stores and through affiliated retailers.

Latest figures suggest that Bose employs 9,000 people and its founder Amar Bose has net worth of $1 billion.

On Cable, Bose ran 20,972 spots in the last 12 months*. They ran hottest in the holiday month of December with 5,879 spots.

Radio got the majority (75.39%) of the ads between the three media. In the last 12 months, Bose ran 87,660 spots on radio. This is good, since Bose sells a Bose Radio. The two biggest months of the year were last November with 19,018 spots and December 2010 with 21,865 ads.

On TV, Bose uses a bit different strategy with only 7,650 spots in the last 12 months and most of them in May (2,603) and June (2,165) spots.

POSTED: October 31, 2011

Hyundai Motor Company dates back to April 1946 when founder, Chung Ju-Yung established Hyundai Auto Service in Seoul, South Korea at the age of 31 years. The name Hyundai was chosen for its meaning which in English translates to “modern.” The Hyundai logo is symbolic of the company's desire to expand. The oval shape represents the company's global expansion and the stylized "H" is symbolic of two people (the company and customer) shaking hands.

In 1968 the company entered into a contract with Ford motor company to assemble the Ford Cortina and Granada for the South Korean market. The eight year journey with Ford provided Hyundai with assembly knowledge, blueprints, technical specifications, production manuals, and trained Hyundai engineers.

In 1975, the Pony, the first Korean car, was released, as Giorgetto Giugiaro’s ItalDesign firm was hired for styling and design while Mitsubishi Motors of Japan was hired for powertrain technology. For the next few years, Hyundai gained good experience working with Ford and its own model Pony and started working on new models.

In 1977, Hyundai hired moonlighting Japanese engineers to solve remaining issues. Exports of the Pony soon followed and the Pony subcompact was displayed at the 1978, 56th International Automobile Expo in Brussels. That same year, Hyundai exported their 10,000th Pony.

Hyundai sold its first car, the Excel, in the U.S. in the year 1986. Initially Hyundai was not recognized by Americans but upgraded its product line very quickly and now can boast a larger market share in the States.

Hyundai began to make over their image in order to be a world class brand. In 1999, Chung Ju-Yung transferred leadership to his son, Chung Mong Koo. They then proceeded to launch a dynamic marketing campaign in the United States.

Today, Hyundai is the world’s largest automaker by profit, fourth largest by units sold and fastest growing automaker.

In 2010, Hyundai recorded 3.61 million vehicles sold in the global market. They have 75,000 employees.

Mazda Motor Corporation is a Japanese automotive manufacturer based in Hiroshima, Japan and was founded in 1920. Toyo Kogyo moved from manufacturing machine tools to vehicles, with the introduction of the Mazda-Go in 1931.

Toyo Kogyo produced weapons for the Japanese military throughout the Second World War.

Beginning in the 1960s, Mazda put a major engineering effort into development of the Wankel rotary engine beginning with the limited-production Cosmo Sport of 1967 and continuing to the present day with the RX-8. Mazda has become the sole manufacturer of Wankel-type engines after NSU, Citroën and GM (Corvette) gave up on the innovation.

During 1968, Mazda started formal operations in Canada and by 1970, Mazda formally entered the American market (Mazda North American Operations).

Mazda's success continued until the onset of the 1973 oil crisis. As American buyers (as well as those in other nations) quickly turned to vehicles with better fuel efficiency, the relatively thirsty rotary-powered models began to fall out of favor.

Not wishing to abandon the rotary engine entirely, Mazda refocused their efforts and made it a choice for the sporting motorist rather than a mainstream power plant. Starting with the lightweight RX-7 in 1978 and continuing with the modern RX-8, Mazda has continued its dedication to this unique power plant.

Introduced in 1989 to worldwide acclaim, the Miata has been widely credited with reviving the concept of the small sports car after its decline in the late 1970s.

Mazda's financial turmoil and decline during the 1960s resulted in a new corporate investor, Ford Motor Company, which at one time owned more than 33% of the company.

Mazda helped Ford develop the 1991 Explorer, which Mazda sold as the 2-door only Mazda Navajo from 1991 through 1994. Ironically, Mazda's version was unsuccessful, while the Ford (available from the start as a 4-door or 2-door model) instantly became the best-selling sport-utility vehicle in the United States and kept that title for over a decade.

On November 18, 2010, Ford reduced their stake further to just 3%, citing the reduction of ownership would allow greater flexibility to pursue growth in emerging markets. Ford and Mazda remain strategic partners through joint ventures and exchanges of technological information.

In marketing, the Zoom-Zoom campaign was widely used on radio and TV around the world.

According to company documents, Mazda sold 1,285,815 cars worldwide in 2010, with North America contributing 308,228 units sold. This represents a $70 million loss in net income for the fiscal year ending March, 2011.

On Cable, Hyundai ran 312,622 spots in the last 12 months*. Mazda ran 152,474 spots in the same date range. Hyundai biggest month was January with 38,269 spots, while Mazda ran hottest in March with 23,441 spots.

On Radio, Hyundai is cleaning Mazda’s clock. In the last 12 months, Hyundai ran 183,090 spots against Mazda’s 10,618 ads. Hyundai ran hottest in July with 22,941 spots, while Mazda ran the most spots in February 2010 at 1,938 spots.

On TV, the face-off is a bit more competitive with Hyundai running 292,418 spots in the last 12 months against Mazda’s 134,399 ads. Mazda’s biggest month on TV was this last August with 19,235, while Hyundai ran the most spots in the month of July at 31,151 spots.

*For this report, the range of data collected was from November 2010 to early morning October 31, 2011

Posted: October 31, 2011

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