How a multi-platform partnership between the Guardian and ITV helped to deliver record levels of viewership for ITV4’s Tour de France coverage.

1.
BEST NEWSBRAND CAMPAIGN:
ITV Sport Tour De France cross platform partnership with The
Guardian
Executive Summary:
The sports broadcast landscape is competitive however with ITV’s diverse, live
and free offering it demonstrates ITV understands what it’s like to be a fan - the
coverage of Tour De France being one strong proof point.
To build awareness of ITV Sports Tour De France coverage required quality
context and quantifiable reach to active sports fans through multiple touch-points,
dovetailing with succinct messaging, seamless onward journeys and efficiency of
targeting. Therefore the Guardian was identified as the ideal partner for ITV
Sport.
As a result of the campaign interaction was high, sentiment shifted and viewing
exceeded YoY performance.

2. Background and objectives
ITV Sport footprint is largely associated only with football, however the quality and
diversity of the range of Sport that ITV covers is impressive, very appealing and growing.
The imited awareness of the range of sport, as well as the quality of the coverage
provided, is linked to the low awareness with the offering beyond ITV main channel –
mainly on ITV4 but also on the digital platforms. A key business challenge was therefore
to get more sports fans engaged with ITV4 and ITV online/mobile. Ultimately, ITV
wanted to demonstrate that they really care about sport and have a wide range of
coverage, as well as improving quality perceptions across the board.
Another challenge in the current sports landscape was competition:
• Sky offer a dedicated ‘world of sport’ but through a pay model.
• BBC covers a range of sport (and is ‘free’ in the eyes of most), they have little
LIVE coverage.
• BT are new and loud, shouting about core sports in a way that ITV budgets have
no chance in taking on or gaining any cut-through with in the paid media space.
With all the competitor noise over the summer the opportunity was identified to
champion ITV’s exclusive, live & free, broadcast of Tour De France (TdF) through clear
and bold communications targeted by audience, context and relevancy, with ABC1 Men
(with an interest in watching sport on TV) being the main group to target to meet these
business, marketing and communications objectives.
Insight and strategy
ABC1 male, sport loving audience: Fans really care about getting closer to the sport
they love and are resentful of any barriers which get in the way, whether that be having
to pay to see it, not being able to access live coverage, or simply not being aware of a
destination for where they can consume content.
By getting fans to realize ITV understands what it’s like to be a fan we can build the
connection between fans and the sport they love, in turn growing positive sentiment and
perceptions around ITV Sport – lead by the coverage of TdF.
ITV Sport: where nothing comes between a fan and their passion.
Our audience are however by nature medium / light over all TV viewers and particularly
light / medium viewers of ITV making it hard for ITV to reach them with frequency
through their owned media channels (on-air promos, continuity, .com etc), highlighting
the need to invest in additional communication to engage them.
Strength of quality, credible context and quantifiable incremental reach of our
communications to the active fans was required, however dovetailing with succinct
messaging and efficiency of value and targeting.

3. The plan
Through audience analysis, the requirement to announce ITV Sport as the sole
broadcaster of the TdF and the need for a continuous digital presence through the entire
TdF, the Guardian was identified as the ideal solus partner for ITV Sport.
The Guardian’s platform neutral trading model gave us access to their audience across
a variety of touchpoints: guardian.co.uk, m.guardian, android, ipad browser, print and
ipad edition, ensuring delivery of reach in the most cost efficient way, across different
day parts and mindsets seamlessly directing consumers to platforms for viewing and
catch-up (therefore removing any barriers between the fans and the sport they love).
The mobile MPU delivered on Android was the first of its type in a marketing campaign.
In addition to digital targeting, the print activity was placed among TdF editorial as the
contextual relevance ensured that our communications were served to readers that were
interested and receptive.
Looking at competitor activity, concentrating efforts on TdF limited us from being
outshouted as may have been the case with other sports (esp Football & Tennis),
however due to the scale of competitor activity Mindshare & The Guardian adopted a
positional guarantee strategy to ensure we delivered cut-through.
The Guardian campaign complimented all other marketing activity supporting the TdF
coverage on ITV4 (live coverage and highlights) as formats delivered through digital
platforms acted as an extended network to ITV owned channels delivering AV
promotional content and driving directly to ITV Player, while the static creative
executions added impact and a new layer of cut-through to the campaign which was
extended to other print titles on day of launch and final day of the TdF.

4. Results
ITV4 had its highest ever Sunday all time and prime time shares on 21st
July (final day of
TdF). Froome claiming the yellow jersey peaked with 2.1m viewers. TdF Live (16:30-
21:29) averaged 1.2m viewers and a 6.3% share on ITV4, up over 500k viewers YoY.
This is the first time ever the live coverage has attracted over 1m viewers on ITV4!
Importantly the viewing profile was male focused (70%), with a higher share amongst
34-54s than 2012 highlighting the valuable new audience, aligned with the Guardian
cross platform reader profile, that was brought in.
Across all Guardian platforms the campaign over delivered vs. the initial plan due to
incremental display value and higher than predicted CTRs. Tracking of digital display
showed strong traffic to ITV.com during key stages through all platforms, volume through
desktop and high conversion through tablet. iPad app and browser activity delivered a
CTR of 1% in some cases, illustrating how well the Guardian iPad platform performs for
the TdF, ABC1 34-54 male audience.
KellerFay research highlighted the growth of Guardian GMG readers accounting for ITV
conversation. This leads to the strong hypothesis that Guardian cross platform activity
helped shift sentiment amongst readers - ABC1 25-44s (male focused).
Viewpoint
Due to the profile and strength both digital and print platforms delivered against our
audience and the ability to reach various touch-points through out the day, the Guardian
provided the perfect fit to meet both our business and marketing objectives.
Our media & creative teams working closely to deliver best in class and first of type
formats, which illustrated ITV Sports quality, range and leading positioning within the
Sports broadcasting landscape. The performance delivered, exceeded exceptions and
we anticipate working closely with the Guardian and it's cross platform offering in the
future.
Paul Ridsdale, Head of Marketing
ITV. Broadcast
The ITV Sport campaign centered around their coverage of the Tour De France,
perfectly tapped into a new and exciting way of reaching the Guardian audience, across
all our platforms - putting the audience at the heart of the planning and strategy.
The campaign was delivered across print, web, mobile and tablet, with a great level of
understanding placed on the role of each platform within the schedule, with high impact
creative delivering the right message, to the right people at the right time.
This exciting and innovative approach to reaching the guardian audience around
contextually relevant editorial, produced outstanding campaign results; the CTRs for
each platform being between 50-70% above average. I believe this confirms the
combination of the right audience and context, really does resonates with our readers
and how they engage with brands.
Rob Smallwood, Head of Investment
Guardian News and Media