Not strictly a TV question, but I have always wondered about this one. Why on some adverts, especially for part work magazines (you know the thing, build the Cutty Sark in only 495 issues at £5.99 an issue) do they say (for example) "not avaible in the Tyne Tees region" Why do they not market certain things in certain areas?
To take your specific example there, Woody, it's because that partwork will have been trialled in the Tyne Tees region LAST year, so the "part one available now" and "brand new" doesn't apply in Tyne Tees as they'll already be on part fifty, or similar.
Because partworks are expensive to produce and quite a high percentage flop and never get past part ten, they always trial them first in one or two television areas before releasing them to the rest of the regions.
When they DO release them in the rest of the country, they have to put those little disclaimers on the commercials.
That makes sense - but it doesn't for things like free CDs etc in national newspapers.
Just a guess, but I'd have thought if a newspaper's sales were poor, say in Yorkshire and the North East, they might run a free CD promotion on Yorkshire and Tyne Tees only to boost sales there and make their marketing more targeted.
The North East is used quite a lot for product trials -- it's a small area (in terms of people and therefore cost) with a wide spread of consumer types and the region is relatively self-contained (not as much commuter movement in and out as most other areas of the country), making it an ideal part of the country for testing (I think Northern Ireland is used in the same way). McDonalds are currently running different offers here as well.
Interesting that a current ad states 'Not available in
HTV
' (sorry, I forget what the ad is for). People have been watching with me and asked what that means - though I expect it is self-explanatory to many. I do think 'Not available in Wales' looks and sounds better - unless of course they also mean it's not available in the 'West'.
Could the reason that TV regions are used to describe availability of partworks be connected to the logistics of distribution?
Newspaper and magazine wholesalers will have systems geared around TV regions because of the regionalised TV guides - so it makes sense for other publications to latch on to those distribution patterns?
The "Not Available In HTV" refers to the new Beauty magazine with 2 free pencils etc. And this thread has now therefore explained to me where I had seen this ad before - in my home region of HTV about 12 months ago.
Like the man said - you learn something new every day.
