Ray
NPR had a great story following the latest Emmy awards and I wanted to direct your attention to it. You can read it, or click their audio link here.
Mad Men won again for Outstanding Drama Series for the second year in a row! The premise of the article is about how there is more and more competition when it comes to video content either online or on TV, but for now, cable networks seem to be winning the battle and they’re doing it by creating the best content. The author recommends that the broadcast networks go back to the basics and start running better shows.
Read or listen and give me your take.
The following guest post is by Phil Brouillette from Time Warner Cable Kansas City’s monthly Newsletter June 2009:
How many times have you heard “you should continue to advertise even in a soft economy?” Chances are you have heard it more than a few times and most likely you have heard it from a media and/or advertising sales rep. Though it could be viewed as a self-serving recommendation, a recent study suggests that reduced advertising can in fact negatively impact consumer perception of your business.
The latest Ad-ology Research study finds that nearly 50% of U.S. adults “believe that a lack of advertising by a retail store, bank or auto dealership during a recession indicates the business must be struggling.” It also finds that a vast majority of the public perceives businesses that continue to advertise as being competitive or committed to doing business.
It is without a doubt a unique environment for most of us in business today. But there are opportunities out there. I recently went back through the book The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. I landed on law #15: The Law of Candor. Simply stated this law says that when a business starts a message by admitting a problem, consumer minds almost instinctively open up. Once the mind is open, you as a current advertiser, have the opportunity to insert a positive. The positive should be your selling message on how the current environment can benefit them.
If you plan on stayng in business, please don’t sit this one out until things get better. As C. Lee Smith, president and CEO of Ad-ology Research states, “it is critical to advertise in the current economic climate to maintain long-term positive consumer perception of your brand.” As their study found- “advertising appears to play a key role in consumers’ view of how a business is doing. By not advertising, business may be be sending a warning signal to current and potential consumers.” Be wise with your budget, but make sure you are still inviting people to do business with you.
Phil Brouillette is a Local Sales Manager with Time Warner Cable Media Sales.
Normally I focus my attention on this blog to TV and how local Kansas City area companies can use television to invite more people to visit their store, use their services, try a new product, etc. When talking to my clients I often discuss their website and what they are doing to drive traffic to that site, or in general how the site helps them get more business.
At the end of the day, all marketing and advertising is about telling your story. Why should people buy from you? What makes your business unique? Why should I buy something from you now? The reason I want to take a moment to talk about social media is because during my experience in advertising sales I have noticed a shift in the sales cycle. When I started my career in radio, we primarily used location and phone numbers as the way for the audience to take the next step in the sales process. Visit a showroom. Call to schedule an appointment. You wanted a good phone number that was easy to remember and repeat it several times in a commercial. That’s old school. Now, it’s all about a your url. Once someone sees your commercial and realizes that their life isn’t complete without your product or service they’ll go online to find out how to take the next step. Is your website easy to remember? If not, can someone easily find you with a search engine? Maybe you’re buying keywords, maybe not depending on how competitive your industry is. Companies will continue to use television to get people to want to buy something, or to continue to establish their brand. Today there is an extra step in the sales cycle that happens online. It’s critical to have a website that is easy to find and simple to navigate.
What do people mean by social media? Why is it important to me, a local business in Kansas City? Why should I invest time, energy, and possibly money into it?
I’m so glad you asked! 
My definition of social media is an online way to communicate or network with your customers, colleagues and potential clients in order to build a support system or community on the Internet. The basic tools available to build this relationship electronically consists of your own website, a blog, e-mail newsletters, a Twitter account, and MySpace and/or Facebook pages. There are other tools people use like FriendFeed, url shorteners for Twitter like bit.ly or Tinyurl, but to keep it simple let’s focus on having a blog tied to your website, a fan page on Facebook and/or MySpace, and a Twitter account.
Blogging
A blog is important because it is an easy way for you to be an expert and be able to post helpful information that your customers may be looking for. Is it time consuming? A little. You need to continue to keep some fresh content available so that your readers will keep coming back. But is it worth it? You bet! One of the best reasons to have a blog is so that search engines will find you easier. You can use keywords that are important to your industry in the blog and then when someone Googles those keywords, your blog will show up in the results! The more specific to your industry you write about, the better! Also, the more links you have from other websites to your site, the higher you will rank in search results. Go to other blogs that relate to your industry and leave comments. This will immediately give you free links back to your site or blog and make the search engines take notice. You might also gain more readers to your own blog in the process! If your content is valuable people will leave comments and now an online conversation has been started. Don’t forget, you’re the expert on whatever it is you do. Don’t be afraid to write about it. You can get free software loaded into your own website like Word Press or you can create a free blog at http://www.blogger.com/ to get started.
Twitter
So you’ve started this online conversation with your blog. Other than search engines, how are people going to know to read your blog? Twitter is a social media community where people are able to post messages called “tweets” that may not exceed 140 characters. You can include weblinks in your tweet, or attach pictures. Start finding people who talk about things that are related to your industry. I’ll use myself as an example. I started following people who write about advertising. I follow Tom Martin and Phil Johnson who write for Ad Age. I follow local advertising agencies in Kansas City or people who work at local agencies. I also follow people who write about blogging or social media like Chris Brogan. If you know me very well, you also know that I’m into technology like iPhones and computer software, so I follow Chris Pirillo who talks about all things Geeky. I follow most of these people on Twitter and I read many of their blogs because they write about things I’m into. This is the online community I’m talking about. When they post something on their blogs, they broadcast it in a tweet on Twitter and all of their followers or “friends” know to go take a look. People also just kind of chat back and forth about different topics that relate to their industries. Sometimes people write about silly things like the weather, their pets, what they’re going to do on the weekend, or their favorite restaurants, but isn’t that what we do in real life with our business relationships? I often talk about my family with clients, or activities I do with friends. That’s how we build relationships with one another. That’s how we build credibility with our clients as well because they get to know us! The real us.
Twitter also gets me back to the whole search engine optimization thing or SEO as people refer to it. Again, the more links from external sites you have back to your site, the better. Twitter is also being used as a customer service tool. If you want to know what people are saying about you, Twitter is searchable! You can set up a search for keywords, or your business name and whenever anyone tweets about you, you can read it. It feels a little like spying in a high tech kind of way! Why wouldn’t you want to know? I booked a reservation last night for a Hyatt hotel near Chicago. I’m going to be in a friend’s wedding and they have a block of rooms reserved there. If I need anything from Hyatt regarding my stay, guess what? I can tweet about it. Hyatt has an online concierge on Twitter! I bet you that they are searching Twitter for anything related to the Hyatt brand, so if I tweet that I’m unhappy about the quality of my room, don’t like the food, or just wanted to brag about how awesome my hotel is, they’ll see it and be able to respond directly to me accordingly. It’s amazing and it’s the future of customer service! Since I tweet from my iPhone, I’ll be able to have a conversation with them via Twitter while I’m staying at their hotel in Chicago.
Are you starting to get it? Have I recommended anything that costs much money yet? Well, not if you do it mostly yourself. There are agencies that specialize in social media and if you want to pay people to set this up and manage it for you, they can. BUT, wouldn’t you want to be engaged with your customers using these great tools? Of course you would!
E-mail Newsletters
Many of you are already using e-mail newsletters to promote your business or services. Great job! Keep it up. Once you have a blog, you pretty much have most of the content that you’d need for your newsletter. Maybe you could put a little more insider information in it though. You should be using your e-letter to offer highly sought information, or the newest product launches to your subscribers before the general public hears about it, or for special discounts available only to those that read your message. Make your newsletter something people look forward to getting, not just more junk to delete from their inbox. Chris Brogan does a great job of making his e-mail newsletters more personal and a deeper look inside what he’s doing to build his army of social media colleagues. The content in his e-mails is different than his blogs, so I look forward to reading it. I subscribe to all kinds of e-letters and I actually read most of them. I begin deleting them when they start looking and sounding like spam. I’m talking about you Harrah’s, Caesar’s Palace, and yes, even you Venetian!
Social Networking
Finally, MySpace and Facebook are not just dating sites! I see more music industry people still using MySpace becuase people can listen to their products there. Facebook seems to be dominating with overall members and businesses by recent trends. The other day I became a fan of The Grass Pad. It’s a local outdoor lawn and garden company… “The Grass Pad’s High On Grass”! Why would I be a fan? Because now I get alerts when they’re having a sale, or when I should be buying a certain type of fertilizer for my lawn. They have information that I want. Are you catching on? I’m into have a good looking lawn and they’re experts on teaching me how to do this. I’m a loyal customer, a fan. I don’t buy cheap grass seed or lawn chemicals at Home Depot because they are not my local expert, The Grass Pad is.
That’s how you do it! (There’s so much more, but these are the fundamentals.) Social networking isn’t just for bloggers and it’s not just for big national companies. Quite the opposite actually. It’s for niches. It’s for extending your local community and brand online. Success doesn’t happen overnight. I’ve been blogging and tweeting for less than a year. I rarely have comments on my blog, (and rarely any readers! ) but if you Google my name, I’m starting to show up. Quite amazing given that my name is very common and Raymartin.com/net is a company that specializes in near nude pictures of female body builders. (How could I make that up! This is why I chose MyAdGuy.com. It was easy to remember, available, and said something about what I do.) That being said, people are starting to have an interest in what I say on my blog, or tweet on Twitter. And why shouldn’t they? I’m an advertising expert. So, what are you waiting for? Come join the online conversation!
I welcome your questions and comments! After reading this, you should know how to find me!
I ran across this success letter from one of my clients today and thought it was a great testimony of not only the products that I often recommend to others, but also of the fact that it was well written. It reminded me that I should be using these letters more often!
With Dinosaurs – The Live Experience’
to Kansas City in early June, the marketing
campaign included a cross-promotional
schedule with TWC Media Sales
that utilized spot advertising, Video on
Demand and an enter-to-win web contest.
‘Our 30-second commercials did a great
job of teasing the event, but I think
guests didn’t quite understand the enormity
of the show. With our three-minute
clip airing on Video on Demand, viewers
were able to watch additional behind-the
scenes footage about the show and learn
how the dinosaurs actually worked. My
follow-up report showed over 300 VOD
viewings. In addition, we interwove a
dinosaur trivia web contest into the campaign.
Nearly 200 participated in the
contest to win ticket packs to the show.
Cable was a great value to maximize our
advertising dollars. It allowed us to target
by location a diverse group of potential
guests with more disposable income.
Thanks to this multi-faceted campaign
using cable networks, VOD and Internet,
Time Warner Cable put us over the top of
reaching our sales goal!’
Manager, Communications & Marketing
AEG Sprint Center”
Should we care about the change in leadership at NBC Universal? How does it affect advertising in Kansas City? Well, the news story is that Ben Silverman, Co-Chairman at NBC Universal is stepping down and Jeff Gaspin, the former executive in charge of NBC’s cable channels such as USA and Bravo, is being promoted to replace him. You can read the full story from the NY Times here. Silverman was the person who tried to turn around the network’s prime time lineup with shows like “The Celebrity Apprentice” and “Knight Rider”.
What is applicable to local advertisers in KC is the way in which NBC is acknowledging the fact that Cable TV is a better business to be in these days. “In an interview, Mr. Gaspin acknowledged the change in television fortunes. ‘You can’t dismiss the fact that cable is just much more profitable than broadcast television. I don’t see that changing. Cable is a much superior business model.’”
Another quote from the article talks about the superior programming now found on Cable Networks: “The scripted shows on USA now rival those on NBC, especially in the summertime months, when NBC’s only hit is the reality show ‘America’s Got Talent.’ Last Thursday, when NBC struggled to draw three million viewers to its sitcom repeats, a new episode of USA’s most popular show, ‘Burn Notice,’ attracted 6.8 million viewers.”
Time & time again we are seeing the broadcast networks acknowledge that Cable TV is a valuable medium for today’s advertisers. On any given evening over half of the TV Audience is watching cable TV. If you are a local advertiser that is advertising on TV, but not using cable, you should take a serious look at what you are missing. Don’t take it from me, take it from the executives at NBC Universal.
Do you agree that this has any local advertising impact or is this a case of musical chairs in New York that has little to do with us here in the Midwest?
Last month an Adweek/Harris poll was released with over 2,500 respondents that said TV was still the most helpful medium for making purchase decisions. TV beat the runner up (Newspaper) by double!
37% of Americans say that commercials on television are most helpful when making a purchase decision and only 17% said that newspaper ads were the most helpful. What’s even more shocking are the results of internet & radio. 14% said that internet search engines were most helpful and only 3% of respondents listed radio as the most helpful. Ouch! The bottom of the barrel was internet banner ads with only 1% indicating them as the most helpful for making a purchase decision. Those banner ads were also listed as the type of advertising completely ignored. 46% said that they tend to ignore banner ads. (CableSpots 7/6/09)
In a year where business owners are trying to save a buck or two this kind of information is incredibly valuable. I hear the kind of deals that are out there for web advertising and I’ve been at the radio stations and know what kind of sales antics are used to get people to advertise with them. It’s even worse now in the current economy. When taking a hard look at where you can cut back and where you should spend more, it is apparent that TV is still the most effective medium available.
If a banner or radio ad falls in the forest and no one is there to see or hear it, did it actually happen? I bet the radio or internet company will still bill you for it!
Stop taking my word for it that the summer isn’t a bad time to be on TV when you are advertising on cable networks. Check out this article by Bill Carter of the New York Times, “Dismal Ratings for TV Networks in a Coveted Age Group”.
The gist of the story is that the broadcasters are having their worst summer of ratings ever! ABC’s is as bad as last year when they were trying to compete against the Summer Olympics only this year, they don’t have the competition just bad programming that fewer people want to watch. Network news is dying a slow death. The only thing hanging on right now is Conan O’Brien in his new time slot with The Tonight Show on NBC.
It’s not that the viewers are just busy vacationing, they are staying inside to beat the heat and are watching cable TV which just happens to air some of their best programs in the summer. Mentioned in the article are popular original dramas such as “Royal Pains” and “Burn Notice” on USA as well as “The Closer” on TNT. And as much as I can’t stand reality TV I should probably mention that this past Monday was a record breaking evening for TLC with the announcement of the divorce on “Jon & Kate +8″.
In the traditional sense of old school media buying, it’s true that TV has always been more of an afterthought in the summer or a time when you place a cheap buy to take advantage of the excess of inventory. That paradigm is shifting to great programming on cable just like the viewers are migrating away from the broadcast networks.
What are your favorite shows to watch in the summer?
Pontiac & GMC are two brands hanging on for dear life with the government involvement in restructuring GM. The administration would like for these two brands to be eliminated. Pontiac would have a couple of popular models move under the Buick brand as they are already planning with the Saturn Vue and Regal. They would also like to see the high end GMC trucks and SUV’s sold as Chevrolet. GM, however is fighting to keep Pontiac as a boutique brand with fewer models and they do not believe that GMC owners will buy from Chevy. GM is already planning to sell off Hummer, Saab, and Saturn. Kansas City does not even have any Saturn dealerships left although GM claims they are still looking for a new business partner in this market. (CableSpots 4/20)
ESPN released the match ups for this year’s Monday Night Football. All 12 playoff teams will appear in a Monday Night game. Sadly the 2-14 Kansas City Chiefs did not make the cut this year although they are making major changes in the team from the front office to the coaches and position players.
Preseason
8/13/09 Arizona @ Pittsburgh
8/17/09 Carolina @ NY Giants
8/24/09 NY Jets @ Baltimore
8/31/09 Minnesota @ Houston
Regular Season
9/14/09 Buffalo @ New England
9/14/09 San Diego @ Oakland
9/21/09 Indianapolis @ Miami
9/28/09 Carolina @ Dallas
10/5/09 Green Bay @ Minnesota
10/12/09 NY Jets @ Miami
10/19/09 Denver @ San Diego
10/26/09 Philadelphia @ Washington
11/2/09 Atlanta @ New Orleans
11/9/09 Pittsburgh @ Denver
11/16/09 Baltimore @ Cleveland
11/23/09 Tennessee @ Houston
11/30/09 New England @ New Orleans
12/7/09 Baltimore @ Green Bay
12/14/09 Arizona @ San Francisco
12/21/09 NY Giants @ Washington
12/28/09 Minnesota @ Chicago
We have packaged these games at the most aggressive pricing I have ever seen and supplement them with great Chiefs coverage on Metro Sports as well as popular NFL coverage on ESPN like Sunday Countdown. These games will sell out, so the earlier committment to the season, the better.
What other programming do you find successful for big reach and a captive audience?
The New York Times has reported that ad revenue declined 16.6% last year and will be announcing their quarterly performance this week. People close to many newspapers are saying that the first quarter could be down 20-30%. One silver lining is that March may not have been as bad as is showing up because last year, Easter fell in the first quarter and that drives many spring promotions for the retail sector. While Internet advertising was once thought to be an answer to declining traditional revenue, sales are declining there as well leading many to begin considering charging a subscription fee for web content. (CableSpots 4/16/09)
