Unilever secures Vaseline broadcast sponsorship deal

Unilever’s Elida Fabergé has signed a deal worth more than 1m to sponsor all the national weather slots on ITV breakfast channel GMTV.

The deal, negotiated by MGA, an independent programme sponsorship agency, with Elida Fabergé marketing manager Simon Bell, involves the brands Vaseline Intensive Care and Vaseline Anti-Perspirant Deodorant.

For the next year starting on January 1, Vaseline Intensive Care will sponsor the weather break in the cold first and last quarter of the year. The anti-perspirant brand will then appear in the warmer spring and summer months. This is believed to be the first time the Vaseline brand has been a broadcast sponsor.

Ray Magness, head of broadcast sponsorship at GMTV, says: “It’s an established brand breaking the traditional advertising mould. We have a good fit in terms of audience, which is mainly housewives aged 25 to 54.”.

GMTV’s weather is presented by Simon Keeling and Andrea McLean and runs for three minutes, five times every weekday and once on Sunday. Interflora is the sponsor until Christmas.