Polaroid thought Channel One was the perfect vehicle to advertise their I-Zone cameras and Sticky Film. They were a huge advertiser on Channel One last year. What Polaroid’s marketing people didn’t understand is that a large number of classrooms with Channel One TV sets don’t watch Channel One News. Channel One’s claim of an audience of 8 million students is probably at least 3 million too high.
Polaroid filed for bankruptcy last week. They will reorganize the company and hopefully this great company will hire smarter people who will never advertise on Channel One again.
When you saw the Contentville.com commercials on Channel One, they didn’t make any sense. This company sold intellectual works, such as speeches, college-level papers, and magazine articles. Its potential customers were not 6th graders or even high school seniors, but they were big advertisers on Channel One last year. Part of the reason they advertised on C1 was because Primedia and Steven Brill who started Brill’s Content and Contentville.com because business partners. Since Channel One was hurting for advertisers, Contentville ads filled in the gaps.
Contentville ads featured a man who was probably in his late twenties or thirties expressing joy over what he could find on Contentville.com. This certainly wouldn’t make much of an impression on a middle school student.
Contentville.com didn’t file for bankruptcy. They just flat out went out of business. Go to contentville.com and see what advertising on Channel One can do for your company.
