Lifetime’s Every Woman Counts public-service effort is getting a multimillion-dollar campaign contribution from Nationwide.
As sponsor of Lifetime’s nearly year-long get-out-the-vote push, Nationwide will be running a large schedule on both the cable network and its Web site, MyLifetime.com. It also will be woven into special events and activities the network will be running.
Nationwide recently has been making more of an effort to target female heads of households because they increasingly make decisions about purchasing insurance and other financial services. Nationwide has been buying commercial time on dozens of cable networks, but in the past few years hasn’t advertised on Lifetime, the leading women’s network.
“It’s very easy to reach women on cable,” said Steven Schreibman, VP of advertising and brand management at Nationwide. But Nationwide found the Every Woman Counts proposal from Lifetime offered a compelling way to reach viewers.
“It’s about how interested the viewers are in the programming, how engaged they are. And certainly when promotions like Every Woman Counts cross the table, it looks like a great way to engage your viewer, and I think that’s critical,” he said.
The campaign also fits in well with Nationwide’s own voter registration efforts.
“Our small but mighty marketing team was really impressed by Lifetime’s preparation, the actual added-value enhancements that were part of the campaign,” said Mr. Schreibman, who once worked at MTV Networks and saw this as a Rock the Vote-type effort targeting adult women.
Lifetime’s ad sales group used the sponsorship as an opportunity to bring a new client into the fold, said John Matluck, senior VP of advertising sales at Lifetime.
“We knew the election was an important topic for [Nationwide], because of all the different things it touches regarding insurance, security, family, and we started to feel that was something we could probably get them interested in,” Mr. Matluck said.
While Lifetime has sold sponsorships to some of its public-service initiatives before, Every Woman Counts is a much bigger deal.
“What’s unusual about it is how many pieces we have and how long it’s on the air for,” Mr. Matluck said. “We have never in the past done something that’s spanned this amount of time with a client that’s had that much of a commitment.”
Lifetime’s Every Woman Counts campaign includes monthly “If I Were President” vignettes featuring Queen Latifah interviewing women about their election-year priorities. Those vignettes will be tagged with a Nationwide message.
The network also will be running a monthly weekend Every Woman Counts-themed movie. During those movies, Lifetime will run a graphic tying into the campaign and highlighting Nationwide’s sponsorship. Nationwide ads will run either before or after the graphic appears.
Lifetime will flash messages about Every Woman Counts themes on the lower third of the screen during programming. PSAs urging women to register will run through November. Some spots, tagged with the Nationwide brand, will send viewers to MyLifetime.com, where broadband video, online polls, viral e-cards and printable documents will be available.
Mr. Schreibman said he sees numerous sponsorship opportunities seemingly every hour.
“We want to partner with media vehicles where it’s a substantial opportunity, not just a tiny little thing that people may or may not see,” he said. “In the case of Lifetime, the Every Woman Counts idea was a huge strategic initiative for the channel, which means they’re going to treat it very importantly.”