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Television: Marketing battlefield

Gone are the days when TV networks only had to compete with a few rivals to get the attention of potential viewers. Creating compelling content is only the beginning; in a world of fragmented audiences and thousands of platforms and products competing for the same eyeballs, everyone is trying to stand out. Miguel Gonzalez reports.

It’s no secret that television has become a segmented market where audiences are no longer limited by the offerings of the five networks that for years were Australia’s preferred source of entertainment and information. It is a world of multi-channels, pay TV, IPTV, games and an explosion of local and international content available at home or on the go. All of these options are competing for the same viewers so, more than ever, broadcasters must remain visible and attractive.

“Marketing is really under the pump to make whatever it is we are selling unique, make it stand out amongst so many offerings from so many other people. And in the future, there’s only going to be more platforms and more channels,” ABC TV’s outgoing head of marketing Sue Lester told Encore.

SBS group marketing manager Katherine Raskob agrees, because with the arrival of the digital multichannels and a more aggressive competition for audiences, “we all have to get really smarter at thinking
about where the audiences are, and targeting them more effectively – not just advertising everywhere.”
For broadcasters, their most valuable promotional medium is their own channels, an advantage that other sectors of the screen industry don’t have.
“We own the platform and we can communicate with our viewers on a minute-by-minute basis, whereas the film industry doesn’t have a luxury,” said Ten’s head of programming Beverley McGarvey.
Yet on-air promotion is not enough; any good marketer knows that they have to go where their audience is, and that means broadcasters must look beyond their own screens. They’re now exploring online and social networks as an essential part of their strategies to target mainly a younger demographic.
“That’s the biggest change in the last few years, the move to online promotion,” said Lester.

It’s not just paid advertising, but also promotional efforts using the free services of Facebook, Twitter and other technologies. These are allowing the networks to connect directly with their audiences at a level that
seemed impossible only a few years ago, and people are responding in droves. For example, Nine’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday has 449,951 Facebook fans, and Underbelly, 274,241.

“We don’t have control of social networks, and we know that… we don’t want control. It’s about engaging with fans of the shows to give them more of what they want. They want to know what’s coming, they want to be excited, and we want to feed them exactly that. We’re investigating social media so we’re moving with the times, or even better, ahead of the times,” said Andrew Peace, creative director at the Nine Network.
While online is an area of growth that can represent more innovative marketing opportunities, it’s not going to replace other promotional avenues; it will become another tool that is integrated into the media mix.
The rise of online has diverted advertising dollars from more traditional media, but that doesn’t mean that old-fashioned efforts are being abandoned; newspapers, magazines and radio remain important allies, and the commercial networks are utilising their synergies with sister companies to remain relevant everywhere – Seven with Yahoo!7 and Pacific Magazines, Nine with ninemsn and ACP, and Ten with the external advertising supplier EYE.
This kind of presence has delivered great results for Ten with shows like MasterChef and the US comedy Modern Family.
“We have a significant presence,” said McGarvey. “In addition to on-air we do quite a lot of print, targeted at specific demographics. We also do outside advertising; billboards make a big splash, and people see street
furniture every day – it’s all over the place. We spent a lot of money on trains, trams and buses.”
Hit programs such as Underbelly and key sporting events also represent an opportunity for the networks to connect with new viewers.
“We’re very aware that with Underbelly or State of Origin, we’re getting people who are not regular Nine viewers,” said Peace. “That’s why we use those spaces to promote our premium products, and the shows that are coming to our channel.”
While different marketing teams take different approaches to promote their programs, the consensus is that success is a combination of frequency and creativity – just like with any other kind of advertising.
“Everybody knows that to sell Toyota cars, you need more than one spot. You need repetition before there is a real reach, before enough people have seen it to be interested in it,” said Lester.
“You need both,” added McGarvey. “People need to be reminded of the message a number of times, but you don’t want to bore them with the same execution.”

According to Travis Conneeley, creative director of the Foxtel owned and operated channels – and a man who last year was included in The Hollywood Reporter’s Next Generation of International Television list of people who are “redefining television internationally” -, good creative is the one that will stand out from the clutter: “There are so many choices and messages out there that you need to find an emotional connection.  The repetition of a bad product won’t do anything but annoy people”.
To succeed, a good promo must meet its brief, whether it is to reinforce a program’s concept, storyline, or more practical details such as day and time. It is important, however, to stick to single messages.

“People get bombarded with a lot of advertising, and you want them to remember one thing and take something away with them,” argued McGarvey.
As audiences become savvier, broadcasters must ensure they don’t make false promises about their content.
“If you have integrity, your audience tends to trust you more, so we try not to over-promise. In years gone by that was probably not the case in this industry, but now you can only make claims which are true,” said
McGarvey.
According to Conneelley, the trend is to do less hard sell, unlike the style of the1990s and early 2000s: “It used to be ‘This is new, you have to watch it!’ but now you have to be more genuine because people can smell bullshit a lot more. You can’t get away with it as much as you used to.”
This includes cross-promotion, particularly across news and current affairs. To succeed, it needs to be executed in a way that doesn’t alienate audiences.
“The public can lose trust in broadcasters very quickly. Nobody cares when you’re cross-promoting something that is relevant to the show, but when you start doing it through the news, most people are a bit
jaded by that,” he argued.

A globalised world also means that marketing teams have to be more careful about the work they present to their audiences. Last month, it was reported that a new promo for Nine’s drama Rescue Special
Ops was an almost frame-by-frame recreation of a UK promo for Discovery.
“We’ve recognised that was inspiration,” explained Peace. “It’s just one element of a much larger campaign, and it’s in recognition of great work. We’re always inspired by creative work throughout the world,
and that will never go away.”

And has anyone in the world been ‘inspired’ the same way by Nine’s original work?

“I’d be very excited if they had,” said Peace.

PUBLIC PAINS
If the commercial networks struggle to successfully promote their content, it’s easy to imagine how much harder it is for the public broadcasters.
“I’m always whinging that we don’t’ have an advertising budget at all,” admitted ABC TV’s Lester, who will retire this month.
“From time to time, and for very special projects, the managing director will give us some advertising dollars but by and large, there’s been virtually no advertising for ABC TV for the last four years.”
ABC3 was one such exception, and although it did have a paid promotional campaign for its launch last year, it was still under $100,000. According to Lester, the absence of an advertising budget is not driven
by the public broadcaster’s charter, but by an overall lack of funds. Understandably, the broadcaster has to prioritise production over promotion.
“When I started 20 years ago I had a substantial advertising budget, but over time it shrunk and we ended up with nothing. The money has to be put into production,” she said.
“Going forward, the ABC has to address that in a fractured marketplace, if we want to retain visibility, we have to be seen by those viewers who don’t watch us on air; we have to be seen where they are. A budget
has to be found.” In the meantime, ABC TV has to rely on off-air publicity work with radio, print media and, increasingly, online.
The broadcaster is continuously promoting one-off programs – documentaries, short-run series – so even if the marketing area received a funding boost, the budget would still have to serve priorities such as
promoting drama and children’s content.
“On-air promotion helps the commercial broadcasters. If I’m watching MasterChef – and there’s 1.6m people like me – and I see a promo for Modern Family, that’s a pretty nice little promotion just there.
“We try to be as strategic as they are, but we don’t have commercial breaks so we can only promote our content at the top and tail of our programs,” she lamented. “And we also have to be constantly thinking

about our charter; we’re not able to do the same things that the commercials do. That, however, is not restrictive. It’s a good framework for us to be working in marketing, because it makes us more rigorous
about getting things right.”
Another area where the ABC suffers is its ability to act quickly. According to Lester, the commercial networks have a higher promo production volume due to their larger infrastructure and staff, and they can also react quickly to the ratings and be more flexible.
She’s quite right; Andrew Peace says that Nine can produce up to 1,000 promos per week, including regional variations and minor variations for each day – ‘Wednesday at 8:30’ becomes ‘Tomorrow at 8:30’ and so on.
The precarious situation is not entirely different at SBS. Katherine Raskob does have a marketing budget, which she chose not to disclose but described it as “very small”.
The broadcaster works closely with external consultants Razor Group to develop its strategy, media planning and creative.
Although the bulk of SBS’s communication efforts is done through on-air promos, the multicultural broadcaster occasionally supports its programs with print and outdoor advertising – recent examples include last year’s Ashes coverage, or the Russian doll campaign for the latest series of Who Do You Think You Are.

“Sometimes we need to reinforce our on-air message and get more scope and scale,” said Raskob. Money can still be found for certain events. The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa required a greater promotional commitment and had its own special budget; a necessity that arose from SBS’s status as the official broadcaster of such a popular event.
“It’s an opportunity for SBS to showcase its talent in delivering a multi-cultural campaign, which emphasised the fact that it is a world game. We wanted people to hear and see the stories of the biggest and best fans
around the world,” said Raskob.

To support its normal activities, SBS recently restructured its marketing department, appointing new marketing managers for core audience segments.
Former Westfield executive Ola Kay will oversee the groups the broadcaster has identified as ‘Cultural Information Seekers’ and ‘World Sports Fans’, while Nicki Martin will look at the younger audience segments ‘Entertain Me’s’ and ‘Cult Lads’. Both will report to Raskob. The initiative was introduced because SBS believes it can magnify its results if it has a presence in the right places, more often and more regularly, which can be achieved by targeting niche audiences.
“We want to think about our audiences as groups of people and learn what they want from SBS instead on focusing on everybody. By focusing on these segments and communicating effectively with them as opposed to a scattered approach where we try to talk to everybody, we can make sure that people know about our offer,” explained Raskob. “It’s quite an innovative way of approaching marketing and we are really proud of that.”

WHERE’S THE INNOVATION?
Agencies like Tactic have the chance to work with both FTA and pay TV networks (Movie Network channels, ABC3 and others), and according to creative director Diana Constantini – who will take over Sue Lester’s role as head of marketing at the ABC this month – it is in the subscription environment that marketing efforts are more innovative.
“I don’t think the FTAs have changed their approach in creative; it’s pretty much the way they’ve always done it except there seems to be less of it. Their creative is pretty simple, particularly for acquired programs; they get great key art from the distributors and then it’s just about adding time, day and branding. They have the infrastructure in place, so it’s easier for them to do it in-house,” said Constantini.
The main reason behind this seemingly less risky approach is that FTAs are general entertainment channels that have to appeal to a broader audience, as opposed to the niche channels on subscription platforms.
“In pay TV you get an opportunity to be very specific in terms of your design and creative. If you  look at some of the channels, the branding that lives in them could never live in the FTA world,” she explained.
Another major difference is that the FTAs are spending less time on branding than their subscription counterparts, mainly because of time constrains.

“Their strategy is to get straight into the next  program; they might have a five-second bumper and that’s it. A long promo or interstitial during a break is the equivalent of holding up a sign that says ‘change
the channel now’.

“That’s why you always have to strive to make it as entertaining as possible, as well as do a good branding job so you get a double whammy result.”

Nine’s Peace agrees with Constantinit about the branding trend: “We sell the show rather than the Nine brand. People may have their preferred channel, but really, it’s the specific product that people seek
out. The exception is when we get access to talent, particularly from US-acquired programs, which is a great opportunity to grow our ‘Welcome Home’ branding campaign.”
According to Constantini, one thing that is unfortunately common to both FTA and pay TV is a noticeable decrease in budgets.

“We’d love to get our hands on a Nine Network kind of budget, because in the subscription world people want spend a little bit less and put it into digital, but that’s something we have to work with,” Constantini
lamented.
Tactic’s work received 21 nominations at the World Promax/BDA Awards, organised by the international body for promotion and marketing professionals working in electronic and broadcast media. The
current chair for Australia and New Zealand is Foxtel’s Conneeley.
Wearing his Promax hat, Conneeley admits that although FTA efforts can be “a little bit bland” due to their need to please all, they are good at leveraging their sheer overall channel power, with Ten being an
outstanding example, particularly in the last year.

“They’re doing a fantastic job, with MasterChef, Modern Family. Their short and sharp promos are very effective and prove that it doesn’t necessarily have to be an expensive high-end spot to do the job, and it
can be done in a simple, straightforward manner,” he said. As for pay-TV, Conneeley believes that although their audiences may be smaller, they can innovate by using interactive services.
Both FTA and subscription worlds will be represented at the local Promax conference, which will take place in Sydney in September and will focus on education of the sector.
“We want to inspire our members with great ideas so they cut through the clutter; to make sure they understand their competitors and the different media, and that it isn’t just on-air anymore. They have to
be well-versed in lots of different areas,” explained Conneeley.
“People have to think about the environment in which people will click on those online elements, the same way they have to think about where an on-air promo sits in a commercial break and how the person
at home will react to it. It’s exactly the same.”

The same, but not quite. That is the paradox that the television industry will have to face to make sure all eyes are on them.

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