Channel Watch

Energy provider British Gas was a top ten user of two DM channels in October last year, as the sixth largest spender on door drops and seventh in terms of number of inserts sent out.

In terms of direct mail volumes, British Gas was just outside the top ten, at number 14, and reached number 61 in spend on the medium. The company said this activity was prompted by the onset of the winter season. "We see a high demand for our products in the winter period as the cold weather makes our central heating products and services popular," said Mat Shepherd, head of acquisitions for British Gas Services. In particular, the energy provider focused campaigns on its Homecare service. "We reminded customers of our Homecare service contracts throughout this period and our "Free Gas for a year" offer on the back of our Central Heating Installations sales," said Shepherd.

TOP TEN BRANDS - OCTOBER 2007
Mailers Volume Spend
m pounds m
Cancer Research UK 8.02 0.58
Lloyds TSB 7.15 2.82
Halifax 6.97 3.14
MBNA Europe Bank 6.71 3.02
British Sky Broadcasting 6.69 0.62
Hillarys Blinds 6.10 0.95
Barclaycard Services 6.07 2.68
Somerfield Stores 5.92 0.31
Capital One 5.91 2.10
Direct Line Insurance 5.40 1.58

Door drop Spend
pounds m
Cancer Research UK 0.39
British Sky Broadcasting 0.33
Somerfield Stores 0.31
HIllarys Blinds 0.26
WM Morrison 0.23
British Gas 0.21
Lidl UK 0.18
Argos 0.16
Help the Aged 0.15
Orange 0.15

Inserts Volume
m
British Sky Broadcasting 38.66
Alliance & Leicester 18.38
Dell Computer Corporation 11.32
ING Direct 8.91
Orange 8.79
Purely Creative 7.75
Barclays Bank 7.35
British Gas 6.60
Halfords 5.73
P&O Princess Cruises 5.52

Nielsen Media Research estimates direct mail spend by grossing up mailing volumes from a panel of 10,000 individuals profiled and weighted to be representative of the GB population, and applying their own estimates of post and production costs.

More information about the Nielsen Media panel is available on our website www.nielsenmedia.co.uk

14.6m TPS

3.5m MPS

The Telephone and Mailing Preference Services volumes as at November 2007.