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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
Don't Refer to People as Objects
Promo of the Day
Views Vary on Obama's "View" Visit
Journalists Less Dour About Future, Interview Reveals
'Social TV' App to Let Fans Chat About Shows
CBS to Add More Gay Characters to Shows
0% Would Pay To Use Twitter, Study Finds
"Mad Men" Is Branding Gold
"Mad" Fans Seek Linguistic Goofs in Period Show
Ad Industry Rejects "Mad Men" Image
"Mad Men" Quotables
Quotes
“Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.”
- Leo Burnett
“We want consumers to say, 'That's a hell of a product' instead of, 'That's a hell of an ad.'”
- Leo Burnett
“The work of an advertising agency is warmly and immediately human. It deals with human needs, wants, dreams and hopes. Its 'product' cannot be turned out on an assembly line.”
- Leo Burnett
Don't Refer to People as Objects
by Graeme Newell
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Twitter: gnewell
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One of the primary goals of teases and news stories is to create a sense of personal connection with the heroes, villains and other main characters in any daily show. Just like a prime drama or blockbuster movie, we want our characters to come alive. However, many times our writers refer to people as objects instead of real-life fascinating individuals.
Treat People Like Human Beings
Motivating viewers to care about the main characters of a story starts with the teases and continues into the package. Too many producers are so busy trying to maintain objectivity that they manage to suck all the life out of the fascinating real-life people who show up on the news every night. This often starts with the very words they use to describe these people in our stories. When they use words like "occupants," they objectify the main characters of the drama they're attempting to create. Who wants to hear from a "resident?" I just don't care about these faceless individuals who are part of an indeterminate herd.
Imagine a primetime drama promo that referred to its main character as "a local policeman," or a comedy that promoted its star as "a suburban woman."
Be Especially Careful When Referring to Large Groups
It is hard to feel a connection with "citizens" or "a community." If you want me to care about the people in the story, refer to them as human beings, not an amorphous crowd. It is very hard to empathize with an "occupant of a dwelling."
Avoid: "The residents of this community."
Better: "The families who live on this block."
Avoid: "A Louisville woman was attacked."
Better: "Jenny Lewis from Louisville was attacked."
Don't hesitate to use people's names, particularly first names. This is especially important for stories where you want viewers to identify with the characters in a drama. "This woman's fight with cancer" is not as connecting as "Jenny's fight with cancer." Where appropriate, get friendly, get personal. Just like a good novel, build a personal story around the fascinating characters in your drama. Watch for these words in your copy and turn these abstract groups into warm, flesh-and-blood people:
community
resident
citizen
public
populace
township
occupant
dwelling
inhabitant
tenant
visitor
district
locality
territory
parish
precinct
population
municipality
region
vicinity
zone
locale
society
Graeme Newell is a broadcast and cable marketing consultant who specializes in relationship branding using core emotional drivers. He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free. Find out more here.
Promo of the Day
The 2007 recipient of the Peabody Award, "Mad Men" was lauded for "the way they were on Madison Avenue, in the Manhattan towers and the bedroom communities of New York, circa 1960, is recalled in rich detail and a haze of cigarette smoke in this exemplary period dramatic series."
So here, to welcome Season 4 are 5 promos...as they say "Where the Truth Lies..."
602communications.com/VideoExamples
Share your creative work with your promo peers on the 602communications.com site. Just email it to
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Flash (.flv) or QuickTime (.mov) files, size 320 x 240, are preferred, but WindowsMedia (.wmv) files will also be accepted. Large files may be sent via http://www.yousendit.com. You can also mail your clip a DVD to Graeme Newell at 1011 Lyndhurst Falls Lane, Knightdale, NC 27545.
Views Vary on Obama's "View" Visit
Is it beneath President Obama's dignity to appear on "The View" tomorrow? Yes, say Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Pennsylvania) and Republican Pat Buchanan. They both blasted Obama's scheduled visit to ABC's daytime female chatfest, but theirs appears to be the minority opinion. A sitting U.S. president should do "serious" shows, Rendell argued yesterday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "The View" can be serious, he said, but it also "rocks and rolls a little bit." Buchanan agreed, saying there should be some "majesty" to the presidency. Tomorrow will mark the first time a sitting U.S. president has appeared on a daytime talk show, according to "View" producers. Accordingly, matriarch Barbara Walters will return to the set for the first time since her heart surgery in May. Obama was previously on "The View" twice -- in November 2004, as a U.S. Senator, and in March 2008, as a prospective presidential candidate whom Walters pronounced "very sexy." Alex S. Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, sees no problem with the embattled president sitting in on "The View." "Does Obama want to get his message out? Of course he does. If you're a politician, you go to where the people are going to listen. 'The View' is a great place for him to reach a large group of people, a lot of them women concerned about issues like the economy." Jones labels Rendell's remarks as "ridiculous. I admire Ed Rendell, but he's wrong." While some see "The View" as nothing more than a coffee klatch, the show does take on serious topics. "It's not [PBS'] 'Newshour,' but neither is 'Morning Joe,'" says Jones. "Respect" is the key operating term for any presidential TV shot, observers concur. Respect for the office as well as the person. "How you carry yourself and how you're respected by the people around you is more important than the name of the show," says Richard Prince, an online media critic who focuses on diversity issues in the news business. "I see nothing undignified in 'The View.'" One issue is beyond debate: Obama is sure to spike "The View's" ratings.
MediaBistro
Journalists Less Dour About Future, Interview Reveals
It's been a rough few years for journalists, especially print ones, who have endured massive layoffs, a number of publication closures, and a growing unease about the future of journalism in the digital age. But they're not feeling quite as blue as they were in 2009, according to an annual study conducted by Oriella PR Network, a group of 15 agencies around the world that share information and ideas. While journalists clearly do not have a bright and cheery outlook about the next few years, it's no longer dour, either. This year 39 percent of the 770 journalists surveyed in 15 countries said they thought their publication would lose more than 10 percent this year in ad revenue; last year that number was above 50 percent. This year 44 percent predict that the number of printed media will drastically shrink, compared to 59 percent last year. Last year more than half said the quality of editorial would erode because of lack of resources. This year that was down to 43 percent. Shannon Latta, co-founder of Oriella PR Network and partner and executive vice president at communications agency Horn Group, talks to Media Life about what makes journalists optimistic, what makes them uneasy, and what we can all learn from Sweden. Interview here:
MediaLife Magazine
CBS to Add More Gay Characters to Shows
CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler said the network is adding a trio of gay characters to its existing shows following a recent GLAAD report that gave the network a failing grade for the second year in a row. Addressing reporters at the semi-annual Television Critics Association press tour, Tassler said a gay character will be added to new comedy "$#*! My Dad Says," returning comedy "Rules of Engagement" and legal drama "The Good Wife." "We're disappointed in our track record so far," Tassler said. "We're going to do it. We're not happy with ourselves." Noting that CBS' upcoming new sitcom "$#*! My Dad Says" was inspired by a Twitter feed, and that freshman legal drama "The Defenders" started as a reality show pitch, Tassler emphasized that the network is developing from a more diverse variety of sources than ever before. "You never know where your next hit is going to come from," she said. "It was a terrific year for us, but we are restless, motivated and paranoid" [about finding new hits]."
Hollywood Reporter
'Social TV' App to Let Fans Chat About Shows
Philo, a startup that has developed a social-media platform to let TV fans chat about their favorite shows, has raised an undisclosed amount of financing from institutional and angel investors. "We have spent a lot of time in the digital media space and are big believers in the future of social and interactive television," North Bridge principal Dayna Grayson said in a statement. Los Angeles-based Philo has fewer than 10 employees and debuted its first application last month. The company hopes to sign deals with programmers to promote TV shows or series. Philo also announced version 1.2 of its free iPhone and iPod Touch app, which lets users comment on shows that have been recorded on DVR as well as live programming. In addition, Philo debuted its social TV Web application, available at www.playphilo.com. With the new iPhone/iPod push notifications, when friends tune in, users receive alerts even if they're not currently logged in to Philo. The app's activity stream lets users see how their friends and other viewers are tuning in, commenting and earning credits.
MultiChannel
0% Would Pay To Use Twitter, Study Finds
There have been plenty of studies saying that people are unwilling to pay for content they're now getting for free, but this may be the most telling one yet. Exactly zero percent of the nearly 2,000 people surveyed by the Center for the Digital Future at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism said that they would pay to use a micro-blogging site like Twitter, despite the fact that nearly half have used the site. The report concludes that it will be extremely difficult to get internet users to pay for something they have used for free in the past, based on those results. Of course, ad-supported sites didn't get great feedback, either. While just over half said they'd prefer ads to having to pay for content, 70 percent said web advertising is annoying and half said they never click on ads. The study also found that 82 percent of Americans are now online, the first time the number has ever surpassed 80 percent, and they average 19 hours online per week.
MediaLife Magazine
"Mad Men" Is Branding Gold
The latest episode of Mad Men, as usual, revolved around the relationships of advertising executives on the 1960s. But it also involved the agency pitching a brand, Jantzen. The swimwear brand is, of course, real, and still around. In fact, it's turning 100. Coincidence? Hard to say. But without a doubt, product placement is the unspoken meta-genius of the show.
Mad Men is about the 1960s' U.S. advertising business, but each episode is itself also an advertisement. That makes it the perfect setting for product placement. Each episode focuses on a single client's brand and features outright exposition from the characters about that brand's character. Brands, naturally, have recognized the value of this placement, as does AMC, the network behind Mad Men. In fact, AMC head Charlie Collier is a former ad man himself.
Heineken has paid to be a target of Mad Men's ad men. As has Chase. The show has featured other brands such as American Airlines, Stolichnaya, London Fog, Hilton, Gillette, and Clearasil. The Smirnoff vodka brand leapt at the opportunity to provide a vintage bottle for the show last year.
While the straight sell can help move a brand's products, product placement within Mad Men can give a brand gravitas by demonstrating its legacy. A well-conceived storyline that seemingly teaches consumers about a brand's history is brand-building gold. A spot on Mad Men communicates a brand's iconography and because Don Draper cares about these brands, so does the viewer.
Earlier seasons featured some brands with very little modern relevance, such as Lucky Strike cigarettes. But viewers should expect to see more brands with generational crossover appeal. As for which brand placements are paid and which aren't? That's as much a mystery has Draper himself. As Collier commented last year, "You shouldn't know which ones are paid and which ones aren't."
Brand Channel
"Mad" Fans Seek Linguistic Goofs in Period Show
As the fourth season of the AMC series “Mad Men” kicks off, some of the show’s fans are gearing up to play another round of a peculiar language game: trying to spot flaws in the meticulously constructed dialogue portraying 1960s Madison Avenue.
No show in American television history, it is safe to say, has ever put so much effort into maintaining historically appropriate ways of speaking — and no show has attracted so much scrutiny for its efforts. The three seasons that have been broadcast, set between 1960 and 1963, triggered endless arguments in online discussion forums, with entire threads devoted to potential anachronisms. Among recent small-screen forays into historical fiction, only “Deadwood,” which ran on HBO from 2004 to 2006, generated remotely comparable discussion about the authenticity of its language. (Commenters on that series tended to focus on whether its torrents of colorful, modern-sounding cursing were out of place for a South Dakota mining camp in the 1870s — which they almost certainly were.)
When I spoke recently with Matthew Weiner, the creator, executive producer and head writer of “Mad Men,” he readily admitted that goofs sneak through on his show. He said he still regrets allowing the character Joan to say “The medium is the message” in the first season, four years before Marshall McLuhan introduced the dictum in print. But he defends Joan’s year-end valedictory, “1960, I am so over you,” by pointing to the Cole Porter song “So in Love” from “Kiss Me, Kate.” Scholars of semantics might disagree, seeing a nuance between Porter’s use of the adverb so, which quantifies the extent to which the character is in love, and the later Generation X-style spin on the word as an intensifier meaning “extremely” or “completely” without any comparison of relative degree.
Other lines that have struck a discordant note with quibblers include Don’s “The window for this apology is closing” and Roger’s “I know you have to be on the same page as him.” Window in its metaphorical sense (as in a window of opportunity) and on the same page evidently date to the late ’70s. In a piece in The New Republic, the linguist John McWhorter complained that Peggy’s line “I’m in a very good place right now” is actually in a bad place, historically speaking. Even interjections can come under fire. When the character Sal reacts to the abrupt end of a screening of “Bye Bye Birdie” by exclaiming “awwa!” his falling-and-rising intonation has a 21st-century tinge, according to the linguist Neal Whitman.
As the show progresses, new linguistic pitfalls await the writers. Weiner says he welcomes the fault-finding from fans, because he identifies himself as “one of the most nitpicky people in the world.” “I’m glad that we’re held to a high standard, and I’m glad that people get pleasure from picking it apart,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, it’s a battle for me to make sure it’s right.”
Author Ben Zimmer will answer one reader question every other week. You can follow Mr. Zimmer on Twitter at twitter.com/OnLanguage.
NY Times
Ad Industry Rejects "Mad Men" Image
Ad industry professionals are putting the "mad" in Mad Men. Unhappy with the public seeing them in the same way that some of them enjoy romanticizing themselves (i.e., sharks), advertising insiders are teaming up in an attempt to overhaul the industry's image. But with recent survey results ranking ad professionals among the least trustworthy professions, just below car salesman, can advertising rebrand itself? The short answer is, probably not. As advertisers well know, you may get people to buy something once, but you can't trick people into buying something all of the time. And advertising alone does little to change minds or perception in the short term. The Institute for Advertising Ethics, a research center, is at the core of the movement's efforts. By focusing on ethics, the organization's goal is to improve the public image of advertising.
Natasha Vargas-Cooper, author of the just-released book Mad Men Unbuttoned, argues that it's a misplaced effort. "Ad men should not be reinventing themselves as professional service people like nurses, lawyers, teachers. They are entertainers." She counters that ad execs should "take the sexiest, riskiest part of the industry and make it the selling point. That will actually make people trust them more. It's counterintuitive marketing. Like the VW ad 'do you think the Beetle is homely?' That's because it is? Do you think men in advertisements are trying to seduce you with images and sex? Yes! Great!" The "ethics" move on the part of advertisers smacks of the laughable, and similar, effort of MBAs to gain respect post-economic-meltdown. Vargas-Cooper adds, "If anything, Madison Ave. should try to be more like the characters of Mad Men. Scrupulous, ambitious, and well packaged. Saved the 'trustworthy' for baby food ads." A real "Mad Man" and Madison Avenue veteran, Ed McCabe, recently told the New York Times that Mad Men isn't an accurate portrayal: "It was way, way more fun and crazy than they make it out to be. And the people weren’t that superficial and immoral."
Brand Channel
"Mad Men" Quotables
“Advertising is based on one thing: Happiness.”
- Don Draper (Season 1, Episode 1: “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”)
“When God closes a door he opens a dress.”
- Roger Sterling (Season 1, Episode 10: “Long Weekend”)
“But that’s life. One minute you’re on top of the world, the next minute some secretary’s running you over with a lawn mower.”
- Joan Harris (Season 3, Episode 3: “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency”)
“As far as I’m concerned, as long as men look at me that way, I’m earning my keep."
- Betty Draper (Season 1, Episode 7: “Red in the Face”)
"I love you. I'm giving up my life to be with you, aren't I?"
- Pete Campbell (Season 1, Episode 1: "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes")
"You don't kiss boys, boys kiss you."
- Betty Draper (Season 3, Episode 8: “Souvenir”)
“If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”
- Don Draper (Season 3, Episode 2: “Love Among the Ruins”)
"You know what my father used to say? 'Being with a client is like being in a marriage. Sometimes you get into it for the wrong reasons, and eventually they hit you in the face.'"
- Roger Sterling (Season 1, Episode 10: "Long Weekend")
"Am I to entertain your ballad of dissatisfaction, or has something actually happened? Because I am at work, dear."
- Lane Pryce (Season 3, Episode 10: "The Color Blue")
"Get out of here and move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened."
- Don Draper
Greg Harris: Joannie, I don’t want to have a fight right now.
Joan Harris: Then stop talking.
"If this were me I would say something like 'fun loving girl, responsible sometimes, likes to laugh, lives to love, seeks size six for city living and general gallivanting. No dull moments or dull men tolerated.' or something like that!"
- Joan to Peggy when she is looking for a roommate.
"Nostalgia - it's delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, "nostalgia" literally means "the pain from an old wound." It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards... it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the wheel, it's called the carousel. It let's us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved."
- Don Draper
"And no one will tell you this, but you can’t be a man. Don’t even try. Be a woman. Powerful business when done correctly. Do you understand what I’m saying, dear?"
- Bobbie Barrett gives Peggy some priceless advice
Hooker: "Very rousing, sir."
Pryce: "Churchill rousing or Hitler rousing?"
Peggy, this is isn't China. There's no money in virginity."
- Joan Holloway
"It wasn't a lie, it was ineptitude with insufficient cover."
- Don Draper
Huffington Post
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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
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
(919) 217-4438
Web Site
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