Christy- under the tree at SPAR

The unexpected has happened; SPAR is set to begin featuring in RTE’s Fair City as a new outlet.

The store will become part of the storyline and will essentially create awareness for the brand. In Ireland to date there has never been such an extreme investment in product placement and brand integration of its kind; costing SPAR €900,000 over the next three years.

Christy Phelan, the loser in love, has always put his business as his priority at the Carrigstown corner shop. His corner shop is currently under a transformation into a state-of-the-art SPAR store. Although it is evident that opportunities are there for through the investment, Fair City can also benefit from the opportunity to create new story lines around the Christy Phelan, one of Fair City’s favourite characters.

SPAR has been in the Irish market for over 50 years which places SPAR as a fitting product placement for the Irish soap. RTE’s Fair City reaches over 500,000 viewers across Ireland four times every week, an average of over half a million viewers per episode in 2011

The opportunity for SPAR goes further than product placement because the SPAR brand will be a feature of the story-line on a regular basis which will maximise marketing activity. An on-screen store launch will be aired in December of this year. Although the viewers will now notice the SPAR tree symbol during each episode, they will also notice a “PP” logo to state that the programme contains product placement.

Advertisers are currently faced with an era where viewer can now skip through TV ad breaks at a high speed which allows the viewers to avoid advertisements with the use of SKY+. I feel that SPAR has innovatively established a marketing method which can overcome the current ad avoidance issues and tie with the Irish communities.

Posted By Christine Cullen