Category Archives: Media
Watching MTV for New Years? You Might Have To Make Alternate After Party Plans
Cable companies negotiate contracts to carry the channels you see on your TV. That’s why not every satellite and cable lineup is exactly the same. And not all networks get the same deals. A lot depends on the size of the markets, relationships between the companies, etc.
Viacom – the owner of MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central has not come to a deal with Time Warner cable for the 2009 year. That means at the strike of midnight if you have Time Warner Cable (I’m looking at you NYC and LA), you will not be able to catch Bromance, The City, Best Week Ever, The Daily Show, or Dora the Explorer!
t turns out that Viacom has been trying to negotiate what it claims is a “fair” renewal of its prized cable channels for months and months, but reputedly Time Warner has been unresponsive and “unreasonable”. So now the fight between the two Big Media giants will hurt cable viewers. What the hell? At 12:01 AM on January 1st, just after the ball drops in Time Square, Time Warner Cable’s 13 million subscribers will lose 19 Viacom channels.
The 21st Century Fireside Chat
FDR used to hold regular “fireside chats“, where he would broadcast speeches on the radio for anyone who wanted to tune in. They helped because the country was going through turbulent times, and the calming reassurances of the President helped inspire confidence in the population. It also allowed him to speak directly to the people, allowing him to convince them without a filter of the media or the other party.
Obama is going to bring back the idea for the new millenium. He has announced he will hold weekly speeches and put them up on YouTube. This will strategically allow him to do the same things FDR did. During what will probably be rough times, he will be able to offer reassurances to the country with his plans.
This move doesn’t surprise me. The Obama team has been very good at directly contacting supporters/voters without having to go through normal channels. They got everyone to voluntarily give up their cell phone number to get the VP nomination text. This allowed them to remind you to vote via text. They offered an iPhone app, which allowed you to get Obama news and appearances.
Let’s hope the Obama technology savvy leads to some good policy in the area in years to come.
Marketing Lessons From The Election
Found two great articles about marketing lessons learned from the campaign. There will be arguments as to whether products and services can be marketed the same as politicians and statesmen, but I think the analysis is interesting nonetheless.
AdAge: What Marketers Can Learn From Obama’s Campaign
- Repetition of a single idea
If you tell the truth often enough and keep repeating it, the truth gets bigger and bigger, creating an aura of legitimacy and authenticity.
What word did Hillary Clinton own? First she tried “experience.” When she saw the progress Mr. Obama was making, she shifted to “Countdown to change.” Then when the critics pointed out her me-too approach, she shifted to “Solutions for America.”
Then there’s John McCain. An Oct. 26 cover story in The New York Times Magazine was titled “The Making (and Remaking and Remaking) of the Candidate.” The visual listed some of the labels the candidate was associated with: “Conservative. Maverick. Hero. Straight talker. Commander. Bipartisan conciliator. Experienced leader. Patriot.” Subhead: “When a Campaign Can’t Settle on a Central Narrative, Does It Imperil Its Protagonist?” - Better Not Different
“Better” never works in marketing. The only thing that works in marketing is “different.” When you’re different, you can pre-empt the concept in consumers’ minds so your competitors can never take it away from you. - Simplicity
About 70% of the population thinks the country is going in the wrong direction, hence Obama’s focus on the word “change.” Based on my experience, in the boardrooms of corporate America “change” is an idea that is too simple to sell. Corporate executives are looking for advertising concepts that are “clever.” For all the money being spent, corporate executives want something they couldn’t have thought of themselves. Hopefully, something exceedingly clever. Some of these slogans might be clever, some might be inspiring and some might be descriptive of the company’s product line, but none will ever drive the company’s business in the way that “change” drove the Obama campaign. They’re not simple enough. - Consistency
What’s wrong with 90% of all advertising? Companies try to “communicate” when they should be trying to “position.” What Mr. Obama actually did was to repeat the “change” message over and over again, so that potential voters identified Mr. Obama with the concept. In other words, he owns the “change” idea in voters’ minds. - Relevance
“If you’re losing the battle, shift the battlefield” is an old military axiom that applies equally as well to marketing. By his relentless focus on change, Mr. Obama shifted the political battlefield. He forced his opponents to devote much of their campaign time discussing changes they proposed for the country. And how their changes would differ from the changes that he proposed. All the talk about “change” distracted both Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain from talking about their strengths: their track records, their experience and their relationships with world leaders.
Seth Godin’s Blog: Marketing Lessons From The US Election
- Stories Matter
More than a billion dollars spent, two ‘products’ that have very different features, and yet, when people look back at the election they will remember mavericky winking. You can say that’s trivial. I’ll say that it’s human nature. Your product doesn’t have features that are more important than the ‘features’ being discussed in this election, yet, like most marketers, you’re obsessed with them. Forget it. The story is what people respond to. - TV is over
f people are interested, they’ll watch. On their time (or their boss’s time). They’ll watch online, and spread the idea. You can’t email a TV commercial to a friend, but you can definitely spread a YouTube video. Your challenge isn’t to scrape up enough money to buy TV time. Your challenge is to make video interesting enough that we’ll choose to watch it and choose to share it. - Marketing is Tribal
Karl Rove and others before him were known for cultivating the ‘base’. This was shorthand for a tribe of people with shared interests and vision (it included a number of conservatives and evangelicals). George W. Bush was able to get elected twice by embracing the base, by connecting them, by being one of them.
John McCain had a dilemma. He didn’t particularly like the base nor did they like him. His initial strategy was not to lead this existing tribe, but to weave a new tribe. The idea was that independents and some Democrats, together with the traditional pre-Reagan core of the Republican party, would weave together a new centrist base.Barack Obama also had a challenge. He knew that the traditional base for Democratic candidates wouldn’t be sufficient to get him elected (it had failed John Kerry). So he too set out to weave a new tribe, a tribe that included progressives, the center, younger religious voters, weary veterans, internationalists, Nobel prize winners, black voters and others.Then, McCain made a momentous decision. He chose Sarah Palin, and did it for one huge reason: to embrace the Rove/Bush ‘base’. To lead a tribe that was already there, but not yet his. He was hoping for a side effect, which was to attract Hillary Clinton’s tribe, one that in that moment, was also leaderless.
- Motivating the committed is better than persuading the uncommitted
The unheralded success factor of Obama’s campaign is the get out the vote effort. Every marketer can learn from this. It’s easier (far easier) to motivate the slightly motivated than it is to argue with those that either ignore you or are predisposed to not like you.
A is for Appearance, B is for Believability
Some might see this as a further sign of the coming apocalypse, others just indicative of the state of our political system and media. The NY Times did a story showcasing the new world of political pundit training.
A school calling itself the “Leadership Institute” in Arlington, VA is focusing on the worst parts of journalism and political science and offering classes in how to be a better participant in discussion shows like Hardball or Hannity & Colmes.
Too often political discussion in our country is reduced into sound bites in order to be more appealing. It creates an atmosphere of turning serious policy decisions into a jerry springer episode. Discouraging real intellectual discussions, the winner is determined by who has the better zing or punchline instead of the better idea. No wonder when the founding fathers were creating the constitution they held meetings behind closed doors.
With that said, since that is the world we live in, those who do it well are rewarded. Traditionally, these roles have been held by old policy wonks like Novak or McLaughlin. Now, a new young generation is coming up and showing that they have the verbal moves to match wits and attract viewers. Racheal Maddow of MSNBC consistently beats Larry King now.
This has long been the conservatives playground. Republicans are very good at distracting from real issues. Think about the current campaign. While the economy is tanking, McCain wants to focus on who Obama may or may not know. Kerry was “swift boated”, instead of attacked on issues. So, the sooner Democrats get better at this, the better for the pary.
Training, of course, doesn’t hurt. For whatever reason, some television bookers say that Republicans are way ahead of Democrats when it comes to grooming their young for political talk shows. Historically, Republicans “considered it a primary part of the campaign to have people on television to advocate for their cause,” said Tammy Haddad, a former executive producer for “Hardball” on MSNBC. She called the Leadership Institute part of the Republican “farm system.”
Democrats may be starting to catch up. One liberal organization, the Center for American Progress, started what it calls a “pundit project” in 2006, offering on-camera training at the annual convention of the Daily Kos, a left-leaning blog, and elsewhere.
Too much information?
My friends know, and constantly joke, how connected I am. Not in the sense of ties to the rich, powerful and famous. But, I am constantly able to check email. I use twitter to get up to the second comments from people. I DVR liberal opinion shows on MSNBC. I use RSS to keep track of over 300 feeds. Many of these feeds are news of some sort – celebrity gossip, business, politics, tech – something.
However, the NY times recently ran an article that discussed what can best be described as overdosing on news.
For many, the hunger for information is reminiscent of those harried, harrowing months after Sept. 11, 2001. But seven years ago, there was no iPhone, no Twitter, no YouTube. There was no Google Reader to endlessly feed people updates on their favorite Web sites. Social networking sites, blogs and TiVo were in their infancy.
This explosion of information technology, when combined with an unusual confluence of dramatic — and ongoing — news events, has led many people to conclude that they have given their lives over to a news obsession. They find themselves taking breaks at work every 15 minutes to check the latest updates, and at the end of the day, taking laptops to bed. Then they pad through darkened homes in the predawn to check on the Asian markets.
I have to admit, I’ve done this at work. I would check news headlines on my iphone. Not to the point where my work suffered, but just whenever I had a moment. Walking down the hall to talk to another worker. Or when making copies.
But the biggest reason I do this, is that like everything else these days, news moves so quickly now.
And the news is not just consequential, but whipsaw-volatile. Financial markets swing hundreds of points within an hour; poll numbers shift. This means that news these days has an unbelievably short shelf life, news addicts said. If you haven’t checked the headlines in the last half-hour, the world may already have changed. In times when people think their fate is tied to enormous events that are out of their hands, stockpiling information can give some people a sense of control, social scientists said.
My roommate recently asked me why I do this. I couldn’t really come up with a reason other than I like to be informed. Who wants to be the one person at the table who didn’t hear about some news item while everyone else is chatting away. I like being knowledgeable.
For others, information serves as social currency. Crises, like soap operas or sports teams, can provide a serial drama for people to talk about and bond over, said Kenneth J. Gergen, a senior research psychologist at Swarthmore College who studies technology and culture. “It gives us the stuff that keeps the community together,” he said. And for those whose social circles think of knowledge as power, having the latest information can also enhance status, Dr. Gergen said. “If you can just say what somebody said yesterday, that doesn’t do the trick,” he said.
I wonder if this is unhealthy, or if I really am just the new normal. Lots of people I know check headlines on their phones. I don’t think I’m irrational, maybe just a little more into it than many. And what is wrong with being informed exactly?
New Colin Powell Rumors
I posted a while ago that Colin Powell was supposed to announce his support of Obama. That never happened, however whispers are circulating again that he is poised to announce his support soon.
Powell has made it clear that he has been thinking about an endorsement for a long time but wanted to hear more from the candidates before making his choice. It now seems beyond doubt that Colin Powell will endorse Barack Obama and thereby hammer the final nail in the coffin of the Republican campaign to hold onto the White House.
The reporter, Lawrence O’Donnell, seems to imply that there is no way the McCain campaign could respond to this.
Powell’s endorsement will be perfectly timed to dominate a news cycle or two. It will give Obama the one thing he still needs more of–credibility as Commander-In-Chief. And Sarah Palin’s speechwriters will be hard pressed to come up with a condescending quip about it.
While I do agree, it would give Obama more clout, and support his military stance against the stronger position of McCain, I can see the Palin spin.
She would be able to say that Obama is endorsed by someone from the Bush presidency. After attacking Bush on foreign policy, how could he be happy about Bush’s former Sec. of State. Is this really change? Etc.
I do further think that why this really helps Obama is that he is in the leader position now. The only way to go is down from here. He needs to ride out the last three weeks without incident. Having something in the news like a big endorsement allows that to dominate the news cycle instead of allowing Palin/McCain’s crazy ramblings to only entertain reporters.
Shift in Bailout Discussion
Last week, the media was talking about how this bailout plan was saving wall street- with the cost going to taxpayers. All the discussion centered around how unfair this “corporate socialism” was to the everyday person. No support and lots of criticism for the Bush Bailout Plan.
Now, this monday after the stock market crashed, and the bailout failed to pass the house – the media is reporting about how the failing of wall street will affect the common person on main street – affecting their access to loans, their jobs, etc.
It is interesting to see the corresponding influence from the media, to the citizen who expresses it to the political representative. Last week, people called their rep. telling them to not vote for the plan because it was not fair to the common person. Now, with the media reporting how this will affect “Main street”, I predict people will call their congressman demanding to know why he voted no.
