Promotion in Spain is mainly on the air.

Promotion in Spain is Mainly On The Air

"We can get promo material from our Latin American suppliers without any problem, but usually the quality is poor," said Adonella Roberta Azzoni, the on-air promotion manager for Spain's Telecinco.

Azzoni went on to describe the assistance from Spain's production and distribution companies as "difficult" while the support from North America as "good. "You see," she said, "our national product consists mainly of films, and the local distributors only provide us with the tape, nothing else. No photos, slides or promo pieces." Azzoni continued: "We have a great rapport with Latin American TV companies, but their TV standard is different from ours, so we prefer to shoot our own personality promos. They [the Latin Americans] are good in arranging their programs' stars visits to Spain."

Indeed, in Spain, on-air promotion is a very serious matter for many TV executives. It is considered the most important form of TV program advertising and is only partly supplemented by print promotion.

For this purpose, Azzoni runs a division of 12 people, including an art director, a copyright expert, and a director of production. "Everything is done in-house," said Azzoni, contrary to print promotion, which is in the hands of an outside ad agency with only the press director as an in-house executive. While the Telecinco on air promotion division runs independently, print advertising is ultimately the responsibility of Valerio Lazaroff, the station's president.

However, she pointed out that both the on air and print campaigns are well coordinated: "We go through a lot of meetings," said Azzoni. Telecinco has given one 30-second spot every commercial break which, according to the Spanish broadcast law, cannot be more than a three-minute break for every 15 minutes of programming. But, since on-air promos are not considered advertising (it's programming), "the limit is very flexible."

On the average, Azzoni utilizes 25 promos per prime time show each week, and up to seven spots per week for each morning show. During the weekdays, Telecinco broadcasts up to 22 different shows which, in the words of Azzoni, "are all promoted on the air." Prime time is Telecinco's main thrust for on-air promotion. In Spain, this important period begins at 10 p.m. until 12 a.m., with a 9 p.m. - 10 p.m. slot billed as pre-primetime, but is sold to advertisers just as prime time.

In addition to on-air promotion, Azzoni is responsible for video presentations to agencies and clients, as well as institutional advertising, which is an area that she is concerned about. "We do too little institutional on-air advertising and on-air campaigns with social themes," she said.

"There is the need to create an image for the networks in general," she commented. In the case of Telecinco, on-air promotion assumes added importance, since new coverage areas for the network are added monthly. "We have to re-promote every show for the new viewers," said Azzoni.

Currently, Telecinco covers 37 Spanish provinces, reaching up to 71 per cent of the population.

Telecinco, which is part of Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest Group, began regular broadcasts in Spain last March and today, boasts Azzoni, is Spain's second leading network. "We closely analyze the daily ratings, to see which of our shows need to be reinforced to the audience," she commented.

As far as competition is concerned, Azzoni conceded that, with national, regional and local stations, it is fierce, but Telecinco's main competition is the large, state owned RTVE. Significantly, even though television in Spain has a great following and networks, in general, enjoy healthy ratings, "no one does well financially," concluded Azzoni.

Adonella R. Azzoni is Spain's Telecinco on-air promotion manager. Recently, she was appointed a BPME international committee member. Previously, the Italian-born Azzoni, 27, worked as an on-air promotion manager for Italy's Canale 5, an advertising producer for Retequattro and a foreign promotion manager for the Fininvest Group. She is the recipient of the 1991 BPME Gold Medallion.