Discovery Communications Inc. struck a one-year advertising marriage with The
Home Depot Inc. Monday morning, centered around two of The Learning Channel's
most popular series.
Home Depot will become a category-exclusive sponsor of TLC's Trading
Spaces Oct. 1 and hold that honor until next Sept. 30. The
home-improvement-store chain will tie the Spaces relationship with a
sponsorship renewal, also category-exclusive, for While You Were Out.
For both series, Home Depot will provide products and materials for various
design projects in return for marketing opportunities on special and stunt
episodes.
The agreement also covers involvement with Trading Spaces: Family, the
Sunday-night spinoff series that premiered on TLC last month; tip vignettes
running throughout the channel's schedule; and advertising on Discovery Channel,
Discovery Home & Leisure Channel, BBC America and other Discovery-owned
networks.
Off-air, Home Depot will collaborate on several promotions for Discovery
Channel stores, while giving TLC talent floor time at its stores. A sweepstakes
promotion is also in the works.
Home Depot and Discovery declined to release a dollar figure for the
deal.
Discovery ad-sales president Joe Abruzzese called the Home Depot agreement
groundbreaking, "with formats that couldn't be a better match for their
business," in a prepared statement.
"This extension allows us to hammer home Home Depot's know-how like never
before on cable TV," added John Costello, the company's executive vice president
of merchandising/marketing, in a prepared statement.
Spaces gives his firm "new ways to showcase the latest trends and
innovative products in a hot program format that reaches a very engaged
audience," he added.
