Weekly Spots

POSTED: July 9, 2012

(White Plains, NY) July 9, 2012 – According to Arbitron, Fresno, CA is the 67th largest radio market with a population of 760,700.

• Fresno is the county seat of Fresno County in Central California. The name Fresno is the Spanish language word for the ash tree, and an ash leaf is featured on the city's flag.

• Fresno became the property of the United States in 1846 as a result of the Mexican War. After gold was discovered in California, miners flocked to the foothill areas of the San Joaquin River.

• The Moses Church developed the first canals, called "church ditches," for irrigation. These canals transformed the barren desert of Fresno County into rich soil, thus enabling extensive wheat farming in Fresno County.

• Frances Eisen, father of the wine industry in Fresno County, in 1875, accidentally let some of his grapes dry on the vine and thus, started the raisin industry.

• Some of the four-year institutes of higher learning in Fresno include: Alliant International University; California Christian College; California State University, Fresno; San Joaquin College of Law; University of California, San Francisco – Fresno Medical Education Program; University of Phoenix; and DeVry University.

• Famous people from Fresno include: a glut of NFL quarterbacks, including Trent Dilfer, Carson Palmer, Billy Volek and the great Daryle Lamonica; Major League Baseballs’ Matt Garza;Writer Deborah Blum; Actors Mike Connors and diva Cher are all Fresnans, or Fresnoans.

FRESNO SPOT TEN

In Fresno last week the #1 radio advertiser was THE HOME DEPOT with 758 spots. Coming in #2 was SAVE MART SUPERMARKETS with 671 spots, while LOWE’S soars from #24 to #3 airing 638 announcements. TABLE MOUNTAIN CASINO rolled into #4 with 472 ads and DISH NETWORK took #5 running 458 spots. MCDONALD’S was #6 with 425 commercials, while CHUKCHANSI GOLD RESORT & CASINO won #7 with 424 spots. MOR FURNITURE FOR LESS ran 424 spots and landed in #8, while SLEEP TRAIN moved from #11 to #9 airing 386 spots. SAM’S CLUB leaped from #53 up to #10 with 376 spots.

AUTO PARTS & SERVICE SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

O’REILLY AUTO PARTS moved from #27 to #1 with 21,201 spots. AUTOZONE stepped down from #1 to #2 with 12,945 ads, while NAPA was #3 airing 10,752 spots. ADVANCE AUTO PARTS landed at #4 with 5,623 commercials and CARQUEST AUTO PARTS was solid at #5 with 3,396 spots. GOODYEAR was #6 running 2,277 spots and FRAM was #7 with 2,213 ads. A/C PRO was #8 with 2,065 spots, while PICK-N-PULL placed at #9 running 1,231 spots. And stopping at #10 was JUST BRAKES airing 1,106 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

THE HOME DEPOT is #1 again running 51,350 spots. GEICO edged up from #3 to #2 with 50,212 ads, while LOWE’S made their move from #8 to #3 airing 29,596 spots. MCDONALD’S was solid at #4 again with 29,212 spots and SAM’S CLUB leaps from #16 to #5 with 29,014 spots.

Posted: July 9, 2012

Nintendo started as a small Japanese business by Fusajiro Yamauchi in 1889 as Nintendo Koppai. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed Hanafuda cards. In recognition of its card-playing roots, the name "Nintendo" means "leave luck to heaven”. For years they were in the playing card business.

By 1983 they created the Nintendo's Famicom, a family computer system was a huge success in Japan. In 1985, Nintendo released the Famicom worldwide under the name, the Nintendo Entertainment System.

It was test marketed in New York in 1985 and in Los Angeles in 1986.

Nintendo Entertainment System was was an instant success. Over the course of the next two years, some say it almost single-handedly revitalized the video game industry by selling over 60 million units. The game offered games like Mario and Zelda.

In 1989, Nintendo introduced Game Boy, which only offered four-colors-of-gray on the screen, but was a very successful portable gaming device. It was first driven by the game Tetris. Game Boy sold over 150 million systems worldwide.

Next came the Super Nintendo Entertainment System released in 1991 and featured 16-bit technology. More processing power meant more entertaining games which helped the SNES sell more than 49 million systems worldwide.

Then the next giant step was in 1996 when the Nintendo 64 hit the market. This unit could deliver realistic 3D gaming. Super Mario 64 was the system’s showcase game and thrilled millions for hours and hours.

Game Boy Pocket was introduced with the same technology and now was in color.

In 2001, came the Nintendo GameCube which used optical discs instead of cartridges for its games. In 2003 they followed with Game Boy Advance SP that featured a rechargeable battery and backlit screen.

With competition getting better, Nintendo stepped up with the next level in 2006. They called it Wii. The Wii introduced wireless motion-sensitive remote controllers, built-in Wi-Fi capability, and a host of other features which quickly made it the best-selling console system in the world.

The Nintendo DSi introduced a revised portable system with two cameras and wireless access to downloadable games via the Nintendo DSi Shop. Wii Sports Resort was built on the Wii Sports phenomenon and included the new Wii MotionPlus accessory, which made motion controls even more precise.

Wii brought the hand-held game to the home console. The Nintendo DS family of systems set a new all-time calendar-year U.S. sales record for any console or hand-held system. This was followed up by the Nintendo DSi XL.

In March of 2011, Nintendo launched the Nintendo 3DS system which shows 3D content without the use of special glasses.

With the competition from SONY and Microsoft, this company with more than 1,471 employees has its work cut out for itself.

On Local Cable, Nintendo ran 57,368 spots in the last 12 months. Their biggest month of advertising came in November 2011 with 24,447 ads.

On the Radio, Nintendo ran 22,407 spots with September 2011 hearing the most at 10,962 spots. From January to June 2012, they hardly advertised at all.

On Broadcast TV, Nintendo cleared only 19,474 spots in the last 12 months with a spike in November 2011 with 5,590 spots.

POSTED: July 9, 2012

Capital One, best known for its inventive advertising of its credit card products, is a holding company. Capital One's creative use of information technology is what helped it rapidly grow to one of the largest providers of MasterCard and Visa in the world. During its short history, the company has expanded not only beyond U.S. boundaries but into a variety of consumer financial products and services.

In the mid-1980s, Fairbank recognized what he perceived as a missed opportunity by the credit card industry. He called on Morris, a fellow consultant at Strategic Planning Associates, to help construct a more integrated and scientific approach to marketing bank cards.

Fairbank and Morris's plan would allow companies to fine-tune card product and pricing strategies for individual customers through a decision-making structure blending together marketing, credit, risk, operations, and technology functions.

Richard D. Fairbank and Nigel W. Morris began building the foundation for Capital One in 1988 under the auspices of Richmond, Virginia-based Signet Bank.

Capital One used massive direct mail campaigns to bolster their cardholder numbers. They took a major hit, as did many financial institutions right after September 11, 2001.

And with the damaging global financial crisis in the last year, they too have suffered like the Vikings in their commercials. This theme continues today.

According to their latest annual report they produced revenues of $18.27 billion in 2011 with a net income of $3.25 billion. They have 31,542 employees.

Bank of America Corporation has strong Italian roots. The history of Bank of America dates back to 1904, when Amadeo Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco in an effort to cater to immigrants denied service by other banks. He then established Bank of America and Italy in Italy by buying Banca dell'Italia Meridionale in 1922.

Then while doing business in the USA in 1927, Giannini consolidated his Bank of Italy with the Liberty Bank of America and then three years later, in 1930, renamed his bank, the Bank of America.

The first Bank of America credit card was introduced in 1958, known as the BankAmeriCard. After the acquisition of Seafirst Bank in 1983, Bank of America procured the Security Pacific Corporation in 1991. In 2004, Bank of America bought FleetBoston which allowed the company to make its way into the northeast and National Processing which aided their ever-expanding credit business. 2008 proved to be a major year for Bank of America as the business bought Merrill Lynch & Co.

Now based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bank of America is the largest financial services company in the world, the largest bank by assets and the second largest commercial bank by deposits. Bank of America is also the number one underwriter of global high yield debt, the third largest underwriter of global equity and the ninth largest adviser on global mergers and acquisitions.

Bank of America serves clients in more than 150 countries and has a relationship with 99 percent of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies and 83 percent of the Fortune Global 500. The company is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

According to the latest report, Bank of America claims revenues of $109.27 billion with net income of $1.45 billion. They have 282,000 employees.

On Local Cable, Capital One ran 391,295 spots in the last 12 months against Bank of America’s 239,001 ads. The biggest month for Capital One was December 2011 with 48,739 spots, while Bank of America ran hottest in October 2011 with 38,710 spots.

On the Radio, Capital One Bank ran 61,633 spots in the last 12 months, while Bank of America ran only half of that at 34,411 ads. Capital One’s biggest month on Radio was February 2012 with 11,658 spots, while Bank of America cleared the most spots in October 2011 at 11,075 ads.

On Broadcast TV, Capital One ran 150,721 spots against Bank of America’s 60,683 in the last 12 months. Capital One’s biggest TV month was October 2011 with 17,025 ads and Bank of America ran the most in same month in 2011 with 9,896 spots.

Posted: July 9, 2012

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