Movies are Christmas. Schedules are filled with family favourites, Christmas blockbusters and classic films as an integral part of the Christmas experience. To capitalise on this Sky Movies rebranded one of its channels to 'The Christmas Channel' for December, showing a box set of movies every day. IPC Connect pitched against the likes of the mighty Sun offering a fully integrated campaign across our TV weeklies portfolio. We won the pitch, bringing the campaign to life with 'money can't buy' coverage providing 'The Christmas Channel' with a unique editorial voice.

Sky Movies created a brief requesting an advertising campaign promoting 'The Christmas Channel' with three core objectives: - Drive ratings to the channel - Increase traffic to the website - Increase goodwill towards Sky movies.

A bold proposal placing the £241k budget with IPC in one fully integrated campaign; Sky Movies proposed letting customers choose the films for Christmas and Boxing Day through a voting mechanic and dedicate their movie to a loved one as the ultimate gift. IPC amplified this in both magazine and in a unique online hub. This offered true customer control. IPC began in early October advertising across www.whatsontv.co.uk, coupled with directional media including DPS and page advertorials across the TV weeklies portfolio and 8 weeks sponsorship of TV Times' Movie section.

This approach resulted in a 287% increase in ratings for December Vs the previous 52 weeks, and became the second highest rating channel in the Sky movies portfolio, having previously rated as 8th. 45,000 votes were driven to the Sky Christmas Channel website with 54,711 unique users overall). Ad effectiveness research revealed that 43% of those exposed to the campaign watched the channel, 18% talked to friends about it and 9% voted online delivering a considerable shift in brand perception (44% thought more positively about Sky Movies).

"IPC Media produced a unique creative proposition to support our Christmas campaign in order to reach a whole new audience of tuned in TV listings readers. They successfully brought our campaign idea to life and gave 'The Christmas Channel' on Sky Movies an editorial voice. All the team were very professional, flexible, organised and delivered exactly what we needed them to and more." Francesca Thomas- BSkyB