Research budget get slashed this year? Well some good news is on the way. There are huge companies out there that are more than willing to give you their multi-million dollar research findings for free.

Each year Fortune 500 titans such as Unilever, Proctor and Gamble, and Ford spend tens of millions of dollars researching the precise emotional buttons their advertising must push to motivate a sale. Before they spend a dime on an on-air schedule, they test and re-test the effectiveness of each ad. These advertising pros use this info to mold spots for specialty cable channels. They tailor-make the ads to target the niche audiences these channels attract. In essence, these channels have become little behavior labs for marketers.

Every year the 602 Communications editors record and categorize thousands of ads from Madison Avenue, cable, and local TV stations. We analyze these ads and come up with specific visuals and messages that stimulate the emotional triggers that motivate TV viewing. Let me give you an example. After analyzing a few thousand ads, all aimed at mothers in their 30’s with children in the home, you will find four consistent emotional themes that show up.

In the past, most of our news products could easily be confined to one brand position.  We had a morning, noon, five, six and eleven news.  Although they were different shows with different styles, they all fit nicely into the basic product category of "newscast."  The standard branding routine has been to identify the exemplary features of your show, then tell the world why your product is superior.

As revenue from traditional broadcast channels continues to shrink,  product expansion is the order of the day.  New media, new channels and diversification are at the top of a marketing director's challenges. There is a desperation in the air.  The charge -  to develop new products and new revenue streams.  The trend is clear - traditional 5, 6 & 11 newscasts are slowly losing altitude and could be headed for a financial crash.

Death is a sad but omnipresent part of most newscasts.  Whether it is by natural causes or a grisly murder, all producers have faced the challenge of writing a tease for this obviously depressing topic.  Teases about death tend to be some of the strangest you will find in a newscast.  When facing the grim reaper, most writers instantly abandon any form of creative writing, falling back on hackneyed phrases with little meaning.  Many feel that any sort of creativity in this situation smacks of disrespect.

Most of us can spot a phony claim in a commercial from a mile off. You've probably seen the airline web site ads that promise "lower fares 'may' be available at our site." Right. I "might" be a millionaire in the future too. We've seen the weight loss products that claim "you could lose 'up to' 30 pounds." Those two little words clue into the fact that the product is probably a fake. You invite a friend to your party. She tells you "I just might be there." You know she is not coming. All of us have learned to sniff out conditional words in advertising. Most of us assume these hedging words hide some sleazy Madison Avenue tactics. These words clue us into the fact that the manufacturer may be trying to weasel out of committing to a product's real performance.

If you ask a typical newsroom staffer the target age of their news viewer, most will tell you they're after 18-54 year old viewers.  The truth is you just can't create a show that would appeal to such a wildly divergent group of people.  There is no such thing as a newscast that appeals to a college kid, a stay-at-home dad and a woman planning her retirement years.  The truth is that most news producers create a newscast they themselves would enjoy watching.  That means that by default, many newscasts are created by 20-something producers who know little about the desires or lifestyles of most of their audience, the older viewer.

For those of us who grew up in the 70s and 80's, great advertising was often synonymous with great cleverness.  The pun ruled the day.  On the old television series "Bewitched," the bumbling husband worked at an ad agency, and his clever witch wife Samantha was constantly saving the day by coming up with a magical advertising slogan that always included a pun:
"You'll flip over our pancakes."
"The best dog-gone vet in town."

This antiquated tradition of advertising puns still continues in television promos and teases today.  For some news writers, great teases are all about a continual string of witty antics. They'll jam two or three of them in a sentence.  For example, they will promote a dog show story with lines like, "This next story will leave you panting with anticipation, and hoping for a tasty treat when we return from the break, in two shakes of a dog's tail."  They see the tease as an unimportant whimsical outlet for humor.  It is a break from the more serious news topics - a place for a little journalistic horseplay.

Many producers find that beginning a tease with a statistic helps bolster the importance of their tease.  "Nine hundred children were put into foster care in the city."  The first sentence of a tease should always be an attention grabber.  It should exclaim, not explain.  Anything that requires analysis or critical thinking should be used sparingly.  Statistics can take a long time to convey and are often confusing.

One of the biggest problems with TV station web site advertising these days is “banner blindness.”  After being assaulted with banner ads that jiggle, flash and gyrate, readers are learning to simply block them from their consciousness.  To avoid slipping into seizures from overstimulation, all of us are getting better at simply pushing aside the advertising barrage we endure throughout the day.

If you want to see a newsroom running at its best or its worst, just throw a little breaking news into the mix. Through sheer force of will, the entire news team re-tools the show on the fly, and quite regularly pulls off miracles. Typically, one of the components left on the cutting room floor is the top-of-show tease.

Barack Obama is a social networking idol.  819,000 people follow him on Facebook.  He also has a huge presence on MySpace.  29,400 people follow his every move during the day using the mobile social networking platform Twitter.  Obama has used social networking to bond with young people and get his message out to a generation that is watching less traditional media.