Andrew passed this along to us and he felt that it had some very smart, and obvious observations here that we don’t see often enough.  It’s written to TV promo producers, but the core marketing lessons apply to everyone in and out of radio, too.

** by Graeme Newell gnewell@602communications.com http://www.602communications.com

Take a look around the country and you’ll find that the most innovative and strategic local TV marketing is being done in some of the most troubled markets. Markets like Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis, and San Francisco have absolutely abysmal news ratings. Things got so bad that they were forced to abandon the old model. Many of the stations have redirected their marketing. They have stopped producing promos that bark out long lists of ubiquitous product attributes and started putting their focus on their customer’s connection to the station.

Throughout the life of any product, the branding goes through a typical defined set of stages. Proctor and Gamble introduced the “Swiffer” cleaning mop a few years back, and it was a truly revolutionary product.
The brand position trumpeted the mop’s ability to magically attract dust and dirt with a static charge. Since then, bunches of competing products have entered the market. The Swiffer is no longer unique. Proctor and Gamble had to transition the brand to an emotionally driven strategy, not just a product feature strategy.

FedEx is another classic example. This company invented the overnight delivery business and its “absolutely positively has to be there overnight ” ads became one of the iconic campaigns in advertising history. It was a feature-based brand position and it rocketed the company to its initial success. But FedEx abandoned this brand position. Why? Because it had to. Airborne, DHL, and UPS quickly saw their chance to cash in and swooped in with near identical products. Overnight wasn’t special anymore. FedEx quickly transitioned its slogan line to “why fool around with anyone else ,” the first step in morphing its position to a “trust” brand that has continues to this day.

This is the typical life cycle of most products. You come on to the market with a new product feature. You have a brief window when those product features are unique. Then, competitors rush in and dilute your feature-based brand. Now, your product isn’t much different than anyone else’s product. In order for the leader to remain competitive, it must build an emotionally connected brand position that stands out for its tone and heart, not just its features.

When a new competitor launches a copycat product, many marketers make the mistake of playing the miniscule feature difference game. This is the stalemate trench warfare of branding. Each side trumpets a small feature difference over the competitor’s virtually identical product.
The marketing quickly digresses into a confusing hand-to-hand feature fight between rivals. It becomes a pissing match between two warriors transfixed on defeating the other. Unfortunately, the confused and unconvinced customer often gets left behind in this self-absorbed game of oneupsmanship.

TV news stations will often do this with weather radars. All the dopplers in the market are pretty much the same, but they find small differences and try to convince viewers they are big new features. They will then do research and hear, “They all have dopplers. They’re pretty much the same.” The station then redoubles its efforts and launches a new wave of “explainer” spots.

Advertising is a damned ineffective way to explain anything complicated.

The misguided end game becomes getting the customer to remember names like “super whopper mega doppler XP.” The promos say this name a million times. Through sheer repetition, it sticks in viewer’s minds. The station does research. When asked, viewers can parrot back the name.

Just because they can remember you doesn’t mean they like you. It ain’t about the doppler. It’s about the customers connection with your weather. The doppler is a vehicle. The customer’s connection with your entire brand is the end game.

Their desire for weather information isn’t about an intrinsic love of radar hardware, and the perfunctory promo line “we’ll keep you safe” vastly oversimplifies the complexity of their feelings. Still, most weather branding campaigns spend all their time laboriously explaining the minutia of how their doppler can beat up a competitor’s doppler.

A lot of TV stations are still primarily focused on a fight with the station across town. They are not your primary competitor. Audience erosion is your biggest threat. New competitors like on-line, cell phones and digital platforms are coming up fast. I can get incredibly detailed local weather from weather.com. I can get very detailed local sports information on espn.com. Yahoo is the #1 on-line local news source and is kicking the butts of local TV news sites all over the country.

Cable TV learned this important branding lesson early, and quickly shifted its marketing strategy so it made a personal connection with its audience. Any cable channel that stuck with purely product-feature branding simply died. Cable execs learned the hard way that the only way to win is to hyper-serve a small but loyal base. This audience comes for the shows, but they stay and watch all day because the channel engenders a real sense of belonging. The audience feels like it has found a kindred spirit. The channel has become a friend with values and beliefs that reinforce the viewer’s own priorities.

Channels like ESPN, Fox News, Food Network, Spike, and Lifetime have built their success by making their channels a hangout, not just a bunch of shows. CNN has many more unique viewers each week, but Fox News’s smaller group of incredibly local fans truly love their channel. They watch hour after hour.

Sportscenter has developed its own incredibly intricate system of inside jokes, quirks, and rants.
It is quite literally, the world’s biggest sports bar with the most clever, knowledgeable and fascinating bartender/hosts. You get all this without the hassle of ever leaving your living room. The hosts aren’t just announcers, they are gods with incredibly well defined personalities and endearing idiosyncrasies. Sports coverage is the catalyst, but make no mistake about it, they build loyalty by creating the world’s biggest guy’s club. They have differentiated themselves from other sports highlight shows by clearly understanding men’s emotional needs, and making this show a daily touchstone that fulfills a need for brotherhood and camaraderie.

photo credit: Mzelle Biscotte