Capital 95.8 uses TV ads to promote 500,000 competition

Capital 95.8, the GCap Media-owned London station, is launching a TV campaign to promote a major new competition aimed at attracting more listeners to the station.

The campaign will star breakfast show hosts Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen and is the station’s first TV work under new managing director Paul Jackson and marketing director David Andrews.

The competition, called London iTest, will give listeners a chance to win £500,000 if they can guess the identity of three celebrity guests who say the letter “i”.

Each time a listener guesses incorrectly, the cash prize is reduced by £1,000. The competition will launch on April 28 and will run on weekdays from 7am to 7pm for four weeks.

The TV campaign will break on April 25, with outdoor activity expected to follow, and will direct people to pre-register for the competition. The ad has been created in house with the aid of Ginger Productions. Media buying is being handled by the PHD group’s Rocket.

Andrews says the competition is designed to “get people to trial Capital again”.

The station hopes to reclaim the number one position it held six years ago, when it had a 10.2% share of the London market. It has since fallen to third place and according to the latest Rajar figures for the three months to December 2007 its share has fallen to 4.7%.

Earlier this year, the station parted company with Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners in favour of taking its advertising in house (MW February 14).