Hispanic New York City residents with a knack for Chinese food are having their NY1 Noticias anchors and reporters to go. Literally.
NY1 Noticias, the Time Warner Cable-owned local network with distribution in the city’s five boroughs, last week began introducing 378,000 Chinese food containers featuring the network’s logo and pictures of its main anchors and reporters, including Carleth Keys, Adhemar Montagne, Philip Klint and Juan Manuel Benítez. One side of the container features a logo of Pura Política, the network’s weekly political show hosted by Benítez; another asks viewers: “Do you want news in your language?”
The idea is to remind Hispanic viewers in the New York City area that NY1 Noticias is available only in their area and on Time Warner Cable (channels 95 and 801) and Cablevision (channel 194), but doing so in a very targeted way, making sure the message doesn’t get lost in a sea of tourists. NY1 and NY1 Noticias in the past have used New York City phone kiosks, metropolitan buses and Metrocard holders.
Why Chinese food? “Hispanics are really fond of Chinese food,” said Pat Obermeier, the director of creative services for NY1 News and NY1 Noticias behind the stunt. “So we thought: ‘Why not promote our channel on something people could take home?’”
Obermeier said her team also considered other stunts, such as pizza boxes, but the food containers turned out to be the ones that exposed the brand longer and in a more engaged way, as people spend more time with them than, say, a pizza box.
The cardboard containers, which were produced by Encompass Outdoor Media, will be handed out during six weeks in 126 Chinese food restaurants in heavily Hispanic areas throughout Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan and Queens.
