The Rising Cost of "Free" Promotion - Mike Einstein - MediaBizBloggers

There was an interesting article in this week39s Chicago Tribune Can TBS promos avoid overkill It questioned the wisdom behind running so many promos in MLB playoff games for Conan O39Brien39s new show and cited the resulting downside of a similar effort two years ago on behalf of Frank Caliendo39s quotFrank TVquot perhaps the best example of a program people grew sick of before it ever airedTV networks have always used their own inventory to promote themselves In fact the total inventory consigned to this practice dwarfs by comparison any network39s biggest cash advertiser But it39s really a carryover from a less fragmented time when primetime audience reach really meant somethingTBS39s Frank TV debacle notwithstanding and despite the fact that only 19 months have passed since its demise the media landscape is less giving and less forgiving than everAll media and advertising professionals companies organizations and educators are invited to become MediaBizBloggers For more information contact Jack Myers at jackmediadvisorygroupcom wwwMediaBizBloggerscom is revenuefree and accepts only probono advertising for industry organizations and charities and there is no cost to include your blogI remember speaking with a NASCAR executive at Turner around the time Frank TV was digging its own grave and suggesting that NASCAR would be well advised to expand its promotional efforts beyond its own neighborhood to which he replied quotWhy would we do that when we have a network at our disposal that doesn39t cost us anythingquot quotBecause even though it doesn39t cost you anything the price is too highquot I said The phone silence that ensued spoke volumes about what TBS and NASCAR thought of my opinion and I never got the chance to explain having just told them what an ugly baby they hadI won39t say quotI told you soquot but NASCAR ratings are in the tank there are more and more empty seats at the venues every week and there is no new Dale Earnhart Jr coming down the backstretch Even if there were NASCAR is stuck in an incestuous promotional pit stop Good thing it doesn39t cost them anything Or does itThere are two flawed premises at work here The first is the foolish futility in preaching to a shrinking choir and in throwing more promo pasta on the wall in hopes more of it will stick As Frank Caliendo might say to himself in his best Dr Phil quotHow39s that workin for yaquotBut the greater downside to this selfserving clutter amp8211 the second fly in this promotional ointment amp8211 is the message it sends to the advertising community at large when your investment in yourself delivers such a poor returnI remember several years ago having a conversation with a midmarket TVstation GM whose early news was mired in fourth place in a fourstation race with a 3 HH ratingHe told me he was running 400 HH GRPs a week in news promotion during sweeps His goal was to increase his rating by 33 to a 4 I told him he was making a big mistake because and this predates Frank TV even if he could move the needle from a 3 to a 4 his ultimate yield would not justify the sacrifice of 1600 ratings points over just four weeks worth of sellable commercial inventory I also told him that the public had already spoken on his news product as expressed by the 97 of HH that had chosen not to watch and that a blitzkrieg of news promos hello Frank would only distance them even more I summarized my POV by stating that if he succeeded in jumping his news number to a 4 there would then be only 96 of the audience that still wasn39t interested In fact I suggested he dump his news promotion idea entirely sit on his 3 rating and let me sell the 1600 points on a 5050 split of the found money He wasn39t amusedThe bottom line His news needle didn39t budge He blew his wad at the promotional track and came up a loser in more ways than one because any advertiser watching this fiasco unfold would be within its rights to question the value of its faith and investment in a station that can39t even help itself Clearly 400 points a week just doesn39t buy what it used toBack to Conanamp8230the promos aren39t funny at all In fact I find them embarrassingly unfunny bordering on insulting by the second viewing I predict much ado about nothing when November 9 rolls around and TBS suddenly realizes that they have another Frank Caliendo on their hands Even if Conan wins his time period with a 15 it will have been a very expensive pageant to crown the tallest midgetThe good news is now I know what the quotadquot in ad nauseum really meansRead all the Einstein Brothers39 MediaBizBloggers commentaries at the Brothers Einstein MediaBizBloggersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBlogger

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The Rising Cost of "Free" Promotion - Mike Einstein - MediaBizBloggers

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