To differentiate your news coverage from the others in town, your station needs to stand for something in the minds of the viewers. And when viewers tune in to watch, your news product ought to reflect whatever image it is they have of your product. Be in your news content what you say you are […]
To differentiate your news coverage from the others in town, your station needs to stand for something in the minds of the viewers. And when viewers tune in to watch, your news product ought to reflect whatever image it is they have of your product.
Be in your news content what you say you are in your marketing. And if people have a thirst for that, you’re on to something.
Ideally, what your station stands for should be condensed to one word in the viewers’ minds.
And in the case of Action News on WPVI, the ABC’s Philadelphia O&O, that word is “everywhere.” Action News is everywhere.
“It really defines who we are and what we’re all about,” says Mike Monsell, WPVI’s creative services director.
“You’ve heard the old adage, showing up is half the battle. We show up. Whether it’s the van, or a reporter on the scene, or maybe just responding to a Facebook post. People count on us to be there.”
By every measure, WPVI’s Action News is the most successful local TV news operation in the country and has been for more than 40 years.
There are a lot of reasons for the station’s success in ratings and revenue during that time, but, in terms of its marketing, there’s one in particular that has factored into the station’s dominance consistently over the years.
It’s a catch-phrase born in a creative news image promo that first aired in the 1980s, and one that WPVI has used consistently in its marketing in some fashion or another for all this time.
And this catch-phrase is right up there with some of the most memorable and enduring catch-phrases in marketing and advertising like Just Do It and Got Milk?
And when viewers in the Philadelphia area hear it, they know immediately what it is and what it means.
“There’s that news van again.”
It means WPVI’s Action News is everywhere.
It may go down as one of the most well-known, and most effective, local TV news image spots ever made. It came out at a time when local news marketing and promotion was not very imaginative.
But the brilliance of the creative is in the fact that WPVI has sustained the campaign to some degree or another all this time.
“We’ve been doing little things, here and there,” says Monsell, “to keep the equity alive.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOvOEgUkbqE
“It still has meaning because we fulfill the brand promise,” says Monsell.
“It wouldn’t mean anything if viewers never saw the vans driving around. Plus, the van is just plain cool. And the commercials we’ve done are cool too.”
See, local news, and certainly local news marketing, can be cool.
And during the Academy Awards this past Sunday night on ABC, WPVI unveiled the latest manifestation of the “There’s that news van again” campaign. Monsell says the concept has been bouncing around in his head for 10 years.
Monsell credits Peter Churchman of Churchman Productions for directing the spot. Churchman has directed many WPVI spots over the years, including several versions of there’s-that-news-van spots.
“Peter has a way of taking a good idea, and making it great,” says Monsell.
“What I especially like about this version,” says Churchman, “is how it crosses generations. Teenagers thinking it would be cool to mock up a news van, and dad driving it around while a grandmother cheers them on from the street.”
Yeah, there’s that news van again, rock on.
https://vimeo.com/119595191
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