I am, by no means, a marketing expert. I took one introductory marketing class as part of my engineering degree but beyond that have now experience or training. Irrespective of that fact, I do love to dissect ad campaigns and marketing decisions and this week I’ve come across two that I consider to be completely wrongheaded.
The first is a new plan by Fox and ABC, which you can read about here, to delay the online availability of new season TV shows by over a week. Essentially, by keeping new shows off of network web sites, or services like Hulu and Netflix, the networks hope to drive more people to the TV to watch the shows live, where ad revenues are greater. There’s one problem with this line of thinking – it’s completely wrong.
The majority of people who watch TV online fall into one of three categories. There are the ones who are going to pirate the show no matter what. There’s no way to stop piracy, no matter what they’d have you believe, and trying only ends up hurting the legitimate customers as they have to deal with ridiculous restrictions and limitations, so the most sensible thing to do it just ignore this group entirely. They’re already lost.
The next group are those who can’t or won’t pay for cable. Delaying release isn’t going to convince them to pay $100 a month to watch four shows. Instead it will drive most of them to piracy, while a small number will deal with the wait period. Fewer online views means ad revenue goes down. Unlike broadcast, online views can be precisely monitored and networks can’t use the typical games to artificially inflate their ratings. Online, advertisers know exactly what they’re paying for, so losing viewers here is serious.
The third group are those who simply missed the episode when it broadcast and want to catch up before the next one airs. The 8 day waiting period makes this impossible so, once again, this group will be driven to the torrent sites where they can immediately get a copy of the episode they want to watch, usually in higher quality than they would find on the official site anyway. The networks are claiming they will develop a method for those with a cable subscription to access the shows without the delay, but that will require them actually following through, will require you to be signed up with the right cable company, and be in the right place. All of this merely adds extra hassle, especially when compared to the alternative.
Viewers want access to their media in a timely fashion, on whatever device, or devices, they want. Offer them that and most will gladly pay. Fail to do so and follow in the steps of the music industry.
This week’s second marketing fail is on the radio. Rogers broadcasting has launched a new Top 40 radio station in Vancouver, nothing exciting there. Where it starts to get confusing is when you look at the name. It’s called Sonic. It shares its name, iconography, and website design with another station here in Edmonton which Rogers bought a few years ago. Still nothing too unusual, since media companies often use the same name for local stations across the country to create a brand. The difference here is that Sonic Vancouver is a Top 40 station, while Sonic Edmonton is an Alternative Rock station. Why share the name? There isn’t a lot of overlap in pop and alt rock listeners, so using the same name isn’t going to help build the listener base in either city through name recognition. Sonic Edmonton started as a fiercely independent station and when it was purchased there were concerns of homogenization, which so far have been mostly unfounded. This latest move could reignite those fears. It’s possible that Rogers is readying a format change in Edmonton, preparing to roll out Sonic as a top 40 brand in each of the major markets, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense either, as it has consistently performed as the number 4 station in the city and last year won the national broadcasters’ award for best radio station in the country in any genre. There may be some logical reason for this decision, but from the outside it just looks like a poor move that will damage the brand in both markets.
As I said, I have no particular expertise in marketing, but it appears Fox, ABC, and Rogers could all use some help.
Sleep well,
DTE
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