TV stations are not like fast-food franchises where everything is standardized. Each station has a history, a competitive situation, on-air talent and a style of news coverage that’s unique to them and their market. So a one-size-fits-all marketing solution may not be a good fit for most stations. While major broadcast groups might provide strong […]
TV stations are not like fast-food franchises where everything is standardized. Each station has a history, a competitive situation, on-air talent and a style of news coverage that’s unique to them and their market.
So a one-size-fits-all marketing solution may not be a good fit for most stations.
While major broadcast groups might provide strong corporate leadership and guidance, when it comes to news, sales, digital, engineering and technology as well as marketing and advertising, the stations and their managers are often on their own.
So one of the more fascinating parts of the local TV news business for me is to see the creativity local marketers exhibit when it comes to promoting their news and their station.
The idea for a new campaign from WNCT, Media General’s CBS affiliate in Greenville, N.C., came while Marc Morriston, WNCT’s marketing manager, was driving through the countryside.
“The idea was to create a love letter to Eastern North Carolina,” says Morriston, “based around still photography and beauty shots of the places and people that make the East what it is. We really felt it was important to make sure this connected visually, audibly and musically.”
WNCT has strong news ratings at noon, 6 and 11, according to Morriston, and the morning news is growing.
Like many medium and small markets, there’s often a challenge, and a risk, to making your on-air talent the center of your marketing, as talent comes and goes, ostensibly to bigger markets.
Morriston says he wanted to “give viewers in Eastern North Carolina a sense of pride when they saw the campaign and would help better establish the station as the station that covers all of Eastern North Carolina.”
The campaign became a department wide effort where everyone in the department went out and shot stills in towns all across our viewing area.
“Getting landmarks, farmlands, churches, beaches, businesses, industry, schools, essentially any and everything we thought that would showcase our viewing area,” says Morriston.
The music track came after shooting, with Morriston and his staff listening to lots of cuts from the station’s First Com library before finding one that had “a hometown, earthy feel.”
The script’s message was written and re-written by the staff.
“At the end of the day,” says Morriston, “it really came down to what is the most honest and true words we can say about the East.”
The campaign is getting noticed by viewers and some government agencies.
“We have had interest from the tourism bureau … to help promote tourism in the East.”
If the Our Home campaign can make tourists feel good about the area, imagine how it makes the people who live there feel.
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