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Capital Gold is making disc jockey Tony Blackburn the focus of its

first major advertising campaign since the station was networked almost

two years ago. Capital Radio is putting in excess of pounds 100,000 into

a month-long outdoor advertising push, which broke on December 1 in

London.

The campaign will include outdoor advertising on 1000 bus rears and 150

six-sheets, and ads in London’s free Metro newspaper.

The work is expected to be expanded to include television next year, the

first time the medium will have been used to advertise Gold. A new

creative team from its agency, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, has been

brought in to work on the brand.

The station is being promoted using a psychedelic theme, with Blackburn

featuring as an Austin Powers-type figure. The posters have the

strapline ’Hey baby, here’s my number’. The campaign was created through

AMV BBDO, and bought by Zenith Media.

Blackburn is referred to in the advertising as the ’original medalli on

man’. Vijay Solanki, marketing manager for Capital Gold, said that the

station was hoping to exploit its play-list in the run-up to the

millennium, explaining that people are now looking back over pop history

to pick their favourite songs of the millennium. ’Gold is the millennium

station - we play 60s, 70s and 80s songs,’ he said.

Solanki added that Blackburn was the ideal choice to represent the

station, ’because he’s rooted in the 70s’.

The Austin Powers take-off was inspired by the story that Mike Myers,

creator of Powers, described the character as a cross between Tony

Blackburn and James Bond.

Solanki has also been given the task of broadening the station’s

audience, and he believes that this will be a natural progression of

letting more people know that Blackburn is on Gold. ’Not as many people

as we’d like recognise that Tony Blackburn DJs for us,’ he said.

Gold is seeking to capitalise on a promotional DJ-ing tour of

universities that Blackburn undertook last month to draw in a wider

audience. The station’s core listeners are in the 35- to 54-year-old

range.

Solanki said he wanted to have some fun with the latest campaign and

that the current activity would be supported by undisclosed ambient

advertising.

Capital Gold outperformed Virgin and Kiss in the last set of Rajar

figures, with 4.4% of the audience share. Capital was given the go ahead

early last year to extend its Gold brand to stations in Sussex,

Hampshire, Kent and Birmingham.