CCTV Draws Over US$10B In Primetime Ad Auction Due To Olympics

China Central TV (CCTV) drew $10.7B (all figures U.S.) in ’08 primetime ad bids at its yearly auction Sunday, up 20% from this year, due largely to “strong interest in reaching" viewers of the '08 Olympics, according to Jonathan Landreth of the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The Beijing News reported 30% more companies showed up for the auction than last year.  While much of the ’08 ad time was already allocated to Olympic sponsors, non-sponsors “vied for remaining slots, including special packages that featured ads in state run newspapers, online and via mobile phone text messages.” Companies including KFC and Procter & Gamble  “bid actively alongside official sponsor Johnson & Johnson.”  One of the “top primetime slots next August went to Air China," which bid more than $5M for a spot after the evening new bulletin on CCTV1 (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 11/20).

GOLD MINE: The WALL STREET JOURNAL’s Geoffrey Fowler reports a package of four 15-second spots during both the Opening and Closing ceremonies went to China-based milk brand Yili for $2.7M during an auction in September only for official Olympics sponsors. However, in the “much more developed U.S. ad market,” NBC is planning to charge $800,000 for a 30-second primetime spot, up from $700,000 during the ’06 Turin Games. Chinese marketers and media buyers said that for the Olympics, “standard methods for calculating return on investment are being thrown out the window.”  Red Bull bid $21.4M to put its name on the show “My Star,” and Red Bull Vitamin Drink CEO Wang Rui said, “It is a very complicated issue, but we think it is worthwhile.” WWP’s GroupM media-buying company China Managing Dir Lisa Wei said, “If your key competitor is a sponsor, you definitely want to use CCTV to counter them. But it should be a reasonable price.” However, Fowler notes while Nike spent $9.7M for a package of at least 130 ads during event finals, it “didn’t try to snap up a wide number of spots to counter" adidas, an official Games sponsor. Media buyers said that only around 12 of the more than 60 official sponsors “participated in CCTV’s bidding process for the top ads on CCTV’s prime channel” (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 11/20).