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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills. Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
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Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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In This Issue
Fragmented News Promotion - Why Less is More
Blogging the Bowl Ads
Super Bowl Ad Features Unlikley Trio
CBS Skims on City Coverage
NBC Looking to Scrap Emmys Tape Delay
ABC News Added To Hulu
Fox's Formidable Foe Appears on Factor
Stern Rumored to Replace Cowell
Media Consultant Frank Magid Dies
Top Ten Things You Don't Want To Hear From Your Coach Before The Super Bowl
Quotes
"Mental pleasure are never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment."
- Nathaniel Cotton, British poet (1707-1788)
“Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.”
- Earl Nightingale, US motivational writer and author (1921-1989)
"Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress."
- George Eliot
Fragmented News Promotion - Why Less is More
by Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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Twitter: gnewell
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So the newsroom has kicked butt and delivered some fantastic coverage on a news story that directly reinforces the brand position. It's time for a proof-of-performance promo. Your promo department instantaneously creates a POP and blankets the airwaves. So how long should it run? A couple of days? A week? A month? At most stations, the answer to this question is quite random. Most news staffers would set the run at no more than a couple of days. Most promo departments would tell you at least a week.
At most stations, a "gut check" is about as scientific as it gets when deciphering the complicated science of advertising saturation levels. After the promo has been on the air for a given amount of time, we "feel" it's run its course and is ready for retirement. Most stations badly underestimate the run times and badly overestimate the saturation levels for promos.
There are several reason this happens. First, is our mindset about news itself. News is an incredibly perishable product. Yesterday's newspaper is something to be used to line the cat box. New is always better in news. POPs that showcase yesterday's news story just feel old and tired. Most newsrooms consider re-airing a news story just plain old laziness, and that mindset is applied to news advertising as well.
Remember that advertising is not like news. In many ways, the turnover guidelines are diametrically opposed. In advertising, repetition is your friend. Advertising has "the rule of three." This Madison Avenue tenet says that an ad must be seen three times before it is even noticed by the viewer. Three times is the minimum. Studies at the Kellogg School of Management show that certain kinds of ads can be seen up to 25 times before they lose their effectiveness.
Second, round-the-clock monitoring of our own on-air product insures that most everyone in the station will see the ad a zillion times. In-house staff will have an exponentially higher exposure to the ad. No one in the audience watches our product as much as we do. That warps our perception. Here is a good rule of thumb - when you have seen the ad so many times that you are ready to go down to the promotion department with an ax, that's about the time the ad is starting to be effective.
Hard gross rating point target levels should always determine the number of on-air campaigns and their duration on the TV station's schedule. Most television promotion scheduling systems are far too seat-of-the-pants. This perception problem has only gotten worse in the past few years. Continually shrinking network and syndicated numbers have made our on-air promo schedule much less generous and far more inconsistent.
We're operating with a mindset of plenty, when in fact, the TV inventory world has changed radically. We're getting lots of spots, but not nearly as much audience as in years past. Most promotion schedules are badly fragmented - the result of too many priorities that don't match the realities of the inventory. Few shows get enough horsepower to break through in the viewer's mind.
I find that most stations badly fragment and neglect their most valuable asset - their own on-air schedule. Most stations are under-advertising a lot of projects instead of effectively promoting fewer. To stop the bleeding, managers must assure nothing in their multi-million dollar promotion inventory is wasted.
Morris Hite, one of my favorite advertising guys, said it best: "There is more money wasted in advertising by underspending than by overspending. Underspending in advertising is like buying a ticket halfway to Europe. You've spent your money but you never get there."
Most stations build their on-air priorities from the top down, when they should be built from the bottom up. The number and duration of on-air spots is completely random. The schedule reach and frequency are determined by the number of priorities set by the management team. Jittery management teams tend to drastically overestimate how many products can be effectively promoted. EVERYTHING is a priority. If they have ten priority projects going, they water down their on-air schedule in a vain attempt to serve each one. When things slow down and they have fewer priorities, the effectiveness of their promotion returns to normal. Unfortunately, this decision is based more on boredom and vacation schedules than on quantitative realities of the on-air schedule.
The number of products promoted should always be dictated by what your on-air schedule can support. That means the number of priorities will rarely change week to week. When the numbers go up, you can add another product to the list. More importantly, when the numbers go down, you should take something off the list.
This means you must adhere to a hard and fast rule when in the department head meeting each week. When a promotion spot is put on the schedule, get a firm commitment from the group of what must come off the schedule. Make it a regular practice. By doing this, you maintain effective GRP levels and reinforce to the team that the on-air schedule is a finite resource.
This is especially important during rating periods when effective GRP levels get ridiculously watered down. How many special reports should you promote during sweeps? The strength of your on-air inventory should be the sole determining factor. How many can your schedule support? When a new special report promo goes on the schedule, determine what other product promo must come off. Make it a group decision so that everyone is on board with your finely honed list of priorities.
It is far better to promote fewer things thoroughly than to promote a lot of things superficially. Remember, this is not 1990. We do not have the same on-air dominance of the past. GRP levels have fallen substantially in the past few years. To be effective you must run fewer spots for longer periods of time.
Our traffic and sales departments are full of powerful tools that can help closely regulate your on-air schedule. Sit down with them and work out specific GRP goals for your entire schedule, then monitor the schedule's progress on a weekly basis. Set up regular reports. All managers have some hard decisions to make right now. What on the schedule needs to go? What is absolutely critical? I encourage you to be merciless in your cutting. Better too few things than too many.
The really exciting news is that schedule prioritizing works better for both the audience and the staff. Most promotion departments produce more promos than their schedule can accommodate. Despite the fact that it badly fragments the on-air inventory, promotion departments perpetually kill themselves cranking out promos as fast and as furious as possible. Producing a lot of different spots makes us feel better. We get to stay busy. We produce a lot of promos and that makes us feel like we're working hard and accomplishing things. We can go to the department head meeting with an armload of spots that make for a wonderful show and tell session. Look at how effective we're being - we're crazy busy.
A better strategy is to produce higher quality spots that run longer and do a better job of grabbing the viewer's attention. The goal - produce one great spot with audience-grabbing creative that will break through the clutter, instead of producing two low-quality spots that blend into the chatter. Most stations would dramatically increase their promotion effectiveness if they simply cut the number of promos produced in half.
Next week I'll lay out the specific spot levels and how many GRP's are enough. Plus, I'll show the type of news promos that have the most staying power.
Graeme Newell is a broadcast and web marketing specialist. He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free. Find out more here.
Blogging the Bowl Ads
Stuart Elliott, The Times’s advertising columnist took a running look at some of the evening’s Super Bowl commercials. Here are some highlights from his blog:
7:03 p.m.: It was at 6:43 p.m. Eastern Time that Super Bowl ad history was made: the first commercial to advocate a side on a contentious public issue was shown. The spot was, of course, the commercial from Focus on the Family, the evangelical organization, which bought 30 seconds of time in the game from CBS. The spot was similar to one that the organization ran several times in the pre-game show. It was the third commercial to be shown during Super Bowl XLIV, after spots in the first quarter for Bud Light beer and Snickers. The spot, as expected, featured the college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, who are both against abortion. The spot never used the word “abortion,” and the only nod to the organization’s anti-abortion stance was the sign off at the end, “Celebrate family. Celebrate life.” An article in USA Today on Friday suggested that the word was omitted to help smooth the clearance process for the spot to be accepted for airing. The spot directed viewers to the Focus on the Family Web site, where full information is available about their story. After Mr. Tebow pretends to tackle his mother, she says to him, “We’re trying to tell our story here.” And on screen these words appeared at the end of the spot: “For the full Tebow story, go to focusonthefamily.com.” The spot was slick and well done; a casual viewer might not have any idea it was from an organization as opposed to abortion as Focus on the Family. It used a production style and tone that is typical of Oprah Winfrey: upbeat, seemingly free of ideology, including chirpy music. The appearance of the spot has opened a debate on whether advocacy and issue ads belong on a Super Bowl, which has become an unofficial midwinter American holiday. If the answer is yes, there may come a time when watching the Super Bowl will be like watching TV in a swing state like Ohio or Florida the Sunday before a presidential election, with commercials taking sides showing up every couple of minutes.
7:37 p.m. Who wears the pants in the Super Bowl? Maybe no one. A commercial for CareerBuilder.com after the second quarter began, in which office workers wore only their underwear, was followed by a spot for Dockers in which men were shown pantsless. The CareerBuilder spot, part of a contest to get consumers to create commercials, was a joke about casual Fridays being taken to their illogical extreme. The Dockers spot was meant to comment on men needing to “wear the pants,” i.e., be mature enough to be seen in a pair of khakis. A delightful coincidence or the result of careful planning? It may be a Super Bowl ad mystery for the ages.
7:49 p.m. For the second time in the second quarter, there were two spots in a row with common content. The last time, it was spots for CareerBuilder.com and Dockers that both had men without pants. This time, it was spots for Dr Pepper Cherry soda and a new series on the truTV cable channel, “N.F.L. Full Contact,” that both had mini-men. For Dr Pepper Cherry, the wee men were dressed as members of Kiss. For the TV series, there was a miniature version of the football star Troy Polamalu. Kudos to CBS if this is all on purpose.
8:48 p.m. CBS came in for a considerable amount of criticism before the game when it refused to sell a commercial during the game to a gay dating Web site, ManCrunch.com. But a gay couple appeared in a spot in the third quarter, for Motorola. The spot featured Megan Fox in a bathtub wondering what would happen if she was to send a photo of herself out into the world. Among the vignettes of havoc was a scene of two men in a kitchen. One slapped the other in the face and the second man slapped back. The implication was that Ms. Fox’s naughty pictures could even come between a gay couple. It was a nice moment of inclusion rather than exclusion.
8:56 p.m. Men without pants … a Super Bowl XLIV theme. In the third quarter there was a third spot featuring a pantsless man. It was for Coca-Cola and showed a man sleepwalking through the veldt, encountering animals. The other two, also in the third quarter, were for CareerBuilder.com and Dockers.
8:57 p.m. The speculation was indeed true - Google bought a commercial during the Super Bowl. The spot, appearing in the third quarter, was, as bloggers reported in the last day, promoting Google’s search function and is part of a series demonstrating search in action. The spot began with “study abroad” in Paris and continued through what seemed to be a whirlwind romance, through “jobs in Paris,” “churches in Paris” and “how to assemble a crib” - with an infant’s gurgle at the end. It was just like that sequence from the animated film “Up,” showing the married life of the old man, only about three minutes faster. The spot was tipped off by a Tweet from the Google chief executive that alerted everyone to watch the spots during the third quarter.
9:19 p.m. There seems to be a theme in many of the Super Bowl spots: the need to reassure men that they are as manly as they hope they are. That theme recurs in Super Bowl ads because so many of the viewers are men and so many of the products advertised are aimed at them. For instance, a Dodge spot carried the theme “Man’s last stand” and showed men thinking to themselves about the women in their lives. The thoughts were not of the type to win plaudits from feminists; they were grudging and stereotyped, along the lines of “I will watch your vampire TV shows with you.” There was a spot for Flo TV showing a man shopping with a woman for women’s clothes. A man observing him was not pleased, admonishing him, “Change out of that skirt, Jason.” A spot for Dockers touched on the theme but more subtly, telling men it is time to “wear the pants” and showing scads of them pantsless. The overly masculine tone is upsetting many people who are posting comments to blogs about the Super Bowl spots, particularly women, who are decrying those spots as misogynistic.
9:36 p.m. More grist for the mill of those who believe there is a misogynistic streak in the Super Bowl spots: a commercial for Bud Light beer in which a loutish man disrupts a women’s book club. “I’d love to hear you read some words,” the Neanderthal tells an attractive woman. The punch line at the end involves a weak play on words on “Little Women”: “I’m not too picky, you know.” Add the Bud Light spot to others for brands like Dodge and Flo TV and there is going to be an intense conversation in the hours and days after the game about Madison Avenue’s attitude toward women.
Media Decoder
Super Bowl Ad Features Unlikley Trio
Super Bowl viewers were rubbing their eyes at the sight of a TV spot pairing CBS late-night host David Letterman with longtime NBC archrival Jay Leno, plus media magnate Oprah Winfrey. Appearing early in the CBS-aired game Sunday, the ad depicted Letterman and Leno glumly sharing a couch watching the Super Bowl, with Winfrey seated between them trying to make peace. Letterman grumbles, "This is the worst Super Bowl party ever." "Now, Dave, be nice," Winfrey urges. A disgruntled Leno replies that Letterman is only complaining "because I'm here." In a whiny high voice, Dave mocks what Jay has just said. Oprah shakes her head and sighs. That's it. The spot only lasts 15 seconds. It revisited a promo from the 2007 Super Bowl with Letterman and Winfrey watching the big game. But with the surprise addition of Leno, the 2010 version addresses in compact form the talk-show turmoil at NBC, and the soon-to-be-rekindled competition between Letterman and Leno when he reclaims NBC's "The Tonight Show" on March 1.
In the age of "Avatar," some viewers might have thought that getting Jay and Dave, plus the super-busy Oprah, together in the same frame was probably accomplished through sophisticated computer-graphic imagery. But no, the spot was produced the old-fashioned way, according to Rob Burnett, executive producer of "Late Show with David Letterman." And it was put together quickly. And very hush-hush. "Security was a big priority for us," Burnett said. "We really wanted to keep this under wraps. There were a lot of internal logistical conversations about how to even get Jay and Oprah into our building secretly." Filming took place last Tuesday at the Ed Sullivan Theatre, home of "Late Show." According to Burnett, Leno arrived in disguise: hooded sweatshirt, dark glasses and fake mustache. (Viewers might recall that, last Tuesday, NBC's "The Biggest Loser" was extended by an hour, pre-empting Leno's soon-to-end "Jay Leno Show" and enabling his round-trip dash to New York.) Filming took less than a half-hour, Burnett said. "It was quick, it was easy," he said. "The attitude was professional and cordial. Dave and Jay were fine with each other." Maybe so. But that very funny, very startling promo has neatly paved the way for a late-night battle between rivals that will resume in just weeks.
Yahoo TV
2007 Letterman/Oprah ad here:
Hollywood Reporter
CBS Skims on City Coverage
The final act of CBS’s Super Bowl broadcast Sunday night left me wondering how prepared the network was for a New Orleans victory. This was not an ordinary city whose Saints upset the Indianapolis Colts, 31-17. This was the team representing Hurricane Katrina survivors and the team that had not been to the Super Bowl in a lifetime dating to 1967. Yet in the immediate aftermath of the game, CBS showed only quickie shots of Bourbon Street. Was that the best CBS had for us? One could argue that it would have been justified in cutting to gathering points in the city after critical moments during the game. But there’s no argument about what it should have done when the game was over. Reaction shots of a few seconds each was not enough to tell this story. Showing cities celebrating titles has become trite. But New Orleans is different, as riveting pregame segments by James Brown and Wynton Marsalis amply demonstrated. When Jim Nantz cited the names of various streets and sections of New Orleans, I thought CBS’s cameras would go there. When CBS left Sun Life Stadium about 10:15 p.m. Eastern, it should have gone directly to the happy heart of New Orleans for 15 minutes and delayed the start of its new series “Undercover Boss.” But that was not to be.
NY Times
NBC Looking to Scrap Emmys Tape Delay
In what would be a first for the Emmys telecast, NBC executives are seriously considering a plan to offer the 62nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards live across the country when the network broadcasts the ceremony Aug. 29. NBC just broke the same ground with the Golden Globes on Jan. 17, when it broadcast the 67th annual awards show live coast-to-coast for the first time. Previously, the Globes have aired live on stations in the Eastern Standard and Central time zones but have been telecast on a tape-delayed basis in the Western time zones representing some 22% of the country. In January, all NBC affiliates aired the Globes live, with stations in the Pacific time zone airing the kudofest live from 5-8. Eight Western affiliates also re-broadcast the Globes in primetime. According to sources, NBC is in the process of discussing a similar live Emmys scenario with affiliates. Spokespeople for NBC and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which administers the top TV awards, declined to comment. The move toward real-time award shows comes as the use of Twitter, Facebook and mobile news applications makes winners widely public by the time tape-delayed TV telecasts air in the West, undermining the suspense for viewers who watch them hours after they take place. It could be argued that the live move with the Globes paid off for NBC. Ratings for the Globes this year were up markedly compared to last year's telecast. The three-hour Sunday night show was up 12% over last year in adults 18-49 (5.5 rating), and up 14% in total viewers (17.0 million viewers). It was the network's biggest viewership (excluding sports) in the slot in six years.
Broadcasting & Cable
ABC News Added To Hulu
ABC News content is being added to Hulu on its own dedicated channel. Short and long form programming from Good Morning America, ABC World News with Diane Sawyer, Nightline, This Week, 20/20 and Primetime will be available, as well as select programming from ABC News' digital channel ABC News Now. "We're happy to be able to provide our audience with another way to watch ABC News," said David Westin, president of ABC News. "We look forward to sharing our reporting with users on one of the top video destinations on the Internet." ABC News joins NBC News and Fox News programming on the video site, which is a joint venture of NBC Universal, News Corp. and The Walt Disney Company. Hulu has also been streaming a number of important news events live, including the State of the Union address, and a number of President Obama's primetime press conferences. It had been using feeds from either NBC or Fox for those events. No word on whether ABC News would lend its feed to future live events coverage.
Broadcasting & Cable
Fox's Formidable Foe Appears on Factor
Jon Stewart, who already had a reputation for lobbing word grenades at media personalities and outlets that displease him, this week delivered one of the most sustained criticisms of Fox News ever heard on Fox News. That network, lambasted by many on the left as an arm of the conservative movement, is a “cyclonic perpetual emotion machine” that has “taken reasonable concerns about this president and this economy and turned it into a full-fledged panic about the next coming of Chairman Mao,” Mr. Stewart told Bill O’Reilly of Fox. Parts of the interview were shown on Wednesday and Thursday evenings on Fox News’s most popular program, “The O’Reilly Factor,” and were widely praised by television critics. But Mr. Stewart had a lot more to say about Fox in the portions of the interview that were edited out of the television broadcast. The exchanges are notable because Mr. Stewart, the host of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central, has occasionally strayed beyond his comedy roots into serious media criticism and drawn great attention for doing so. On “Crossfire” on CNN in 2004, he claimed the left-right debate format was “hurting America,” three months before the program was canceled. Last year he took aim at CNBC for being Wall Street cheerleaders, telling Jim Cramer, the host of its “Mad Money” program, that “the financial news industry is not just guilty of a sin of omission but a sin of commission.” This week, invited onto “The O’Reilly Factor” by its host, Mr. O’Reilly, Mr. Stewart asserted that Fox News was “the most passionate and sells the clearest narrative of any news organization,” then asked with a smirk, “are you still referring to it in that manner?” Mr. O’Reilly defended Fox as a news organization and cited a poll last month by the Public Policy Polling organization that showed Fox News was more widely trusted than any other television news organization. Mr. Stewart said Fox had been able to “mainstream conservative talk radio.” On television on Wednesday night, the exchange ended there. But in the studio, Mr. Stewart swung harder, saying Fox had mixed the “media arm of a political party” with “a little bit” of objectivity, something that White House officials have also asserted in recent months. Fox News said the interview was edited only for time. A video of the unedited interview was posted on BillOReilly.com and on foxnews.com on Thursday night.
NY Times
Stern Rumored to Replace Cowell
Stars are clamoring to replace Simon Cowell at the American Idol judges table, but is America's favorite "shock jock" really one of them? Howard Stern, 56, is the Idol producers' top choice to replace Cowell, according to The New York Post. The Sirius radio host's hefty contract expires next year and Stern recently said on-air he had been approached by a major TV network for next year, but also told listeners he turned the offer down. Sources rebuffed the Stern report to Entertainment Weekly, saying there were no front-runners yet to replace Cowell when the acerbic judge heads to The X Factor. In a recent TVGuide.com poll, 37 percent of readers thought X Factor and America's Got Talent judge Piers Morgan should fill Cowell's seat, with recent Sing-Off judge Ben Folds coming in a distant second with 15 percent of the vote. So what do you think? Would Stern make a good replacement for Simon? Vote below in TV Guide's poll and share your personal picks in the comments.
Yahoo TV
Media Consultant Frank Magid Dies
Frank Magid, namesake of the media consultancy Frank N. Magid Associates, passed away this morning in Santa Barbara, California. He was 78 and had been suffering from cancer. Magid was retired from Magid Associates but held an honorary chairman title. Magid Associates consults for numerous stations across the country and provides other professional services ranging from executive coaching to e-commerce consulting. "Frank Magid demanded perfection, led by example and inspired excellence in everyone he touched," said Frank N. Magid TV President Steve Ridge. "He had an insatiable appetite for knowledge and understanding of human behavior. Frank was a true visionary who applied his genius and changed the landscape of television."
Broadcasting & Cable
Top Ten Things You Don't Want To Hear From Your Coach Before The Super Bowl
10. "Are we the Saints or the Colts?"
9. "Don't play too hard; you don't want to be sore on Monday"
8. "Forget game film, let's watch an episode of 'Glee'"
7. "Crap, is the Super Bowl this weekend?"
6. "Sorry I'm drunk; I was out all night with Snooki and J-Woww"
5. "Oh my god, did you see the other team?! They're huge!"
4. "Can you come downtown and bail me out?"
3. "I don't care if we win -- just keep it within the point spread because I bet everything I'm worth"
2. "I wanna see more grabass in the huddle"
1. "Let's win this one for Chemical Ali!"
Late Show with David Letterman
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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills. Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
Sent via TVSpy's email servers. Visit TV Spy's Marketing Matters.
Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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(919) 217-4438
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