This week in New York City is The Conference, PromaxBDA’s annual confab to celebrate and share outstanding examples of entertainment marketing on wherever screen it’s consumed, on-air, online, on the fly. Next week in Las Vegas is the Station Summit, PromaxBDA’s annual confab for TV station marketing execs, network marketing managers and syndication programming professionals. […]
This week in New York City is The Conference, PromaxBDA’s annual confab to celebrate and share outstanding examples of entertainment marketing on wherever screen it’s consumed, on-air, online, on the fly.
Next week in Las Vegas is the Station Summit, PromaxBDA’s annual confab for TV station marketing execs, network marketing managers and syndication programming professionals.
Two conferences back to back. A week in New York, followed by a week in Las Vegas.
Somebody’s got to organize these things, and that job, ultimately, belongs to Steve Kazanjian, PromaxBDA’s president.
So to ask for and receive a few minutes of Kazanjian’s time as he and his staff were preparing for these events a couple weeks ago, was very gracious of him.
Kazanjian came on board as president of PromaxBDA in January of 2015, so he’s got some events and conferences under his belt and I thought it a good time to gauge his take on his performance so far, how he sees the organization doing now, and in the future.
Market Share: Can you give us an overview of your first year and a half?
The organization has done extraordinary things across the board in the last year and half.
I’ve come into the organization as someone who grew up through it, been a member for 20-plus yeats and was on the board of directors for a number of years, as well.
With a different point of view, it was really about how do we shift an organization from a conference-centric organization to a member-forward organization.
So across the board, it’s been doubling down on the amount of content, the amount and level of engagement, and really focusing on leadership and professional development, skill building as well, as digital innovation.
We’re at this really interesting time right now — this transition from linear into digital.
You can think back 400 years, any technological evolution has been followed immediately by a creative revolution. The technology opens up new ways of thinking, new access, new distribution, new opportunities, and then creativity comes along and figures out how to harness that, and how to make that explode if you will.
And now we see that again.
The role of the association at that time was to embrace the new technology, new creativity, new ways of thinking and to herald those new best practices, and to teach and to train, and now we’re doing that same thing.
PromaxBDA hired Rick Swanson as Vice President of Marketing and Programming of the 2016 PromaxBDA Station Summit next week. What does he bring to the table?
Rick’s extraordinary. It’s not just about having deep connections into the station summit, in the membership base, but it’s also understanding the unique needs of each of those members, being one of them himself.
He understands the unique needs of those local members, and what they want out of their careers, what they want out of their creativity, what they want out of their association,
So we’ve doubled down on content this year, and you’ll see that this year in the level of content and the thoughtfulness we’ve put into it, not saying we haven’t done it in the past, but with any experience, it’s always about how do we best yourself, year over year.
What has been the biggest surprise for you in your first year and half?
Because I’ve come into it as a member, as a user if you will, you don’t report to one person, you report to the entire membership base, so if you’re doing something and it doesn’t work, or a message isn’t on target, you hear about it, you hear the good, the great, and the things that need improvement, which to me is really wonderful, but you have deep relationships and people tell you like it is.
I think that’s exciting. It allows us to have real time feedback into what’s working and what’s not working, and to respond accordingly.
What programs does PromaxBDA have in place that the members should know about to benefit them?
We have Promo Pathway, a program we do at Santa Monica College, the country’s first accredited promotion education degree.
We graduate between 22 and 26 kids a year, They go straight into internships, editor jobs, producer jobs, and we try to develop deeper relationship with colleges and universities on how we can provide access to kids who are graduating into the industry, on the local level or cable net level.
On the mid-career side, there’s a mentorship program, aligning those mid-career professionals with the EP and C-level executives.
And the executive level, there’s a diversity council which pushes for diversity inclusion efforts, across all our partners, with talent acquisition and growing their existing talent, within different networks and stations.
With the 2016 Station Summit upon us, what should we all be excited about?
We’ve spent the past six months reviewing this summit. Today’s marketing arena is more dynamic and challenging than ever before, and we need to be able to provide best-in-class content, to help you excel in that environment.
This year, the keynote speakers are on a level we have not seen at the summit before.
The content on PromaxBDA Day (Thursday, June 23) is more engaging than ever before, more relevant than ever before, even if you only come for that day, spend 24 hours with us and we’ll give you the training that will last a year.
There’s never been more of a time when there’s been a greater need for our services.
Now there’s an infinite number of place on how and who to communicate to, and how to differentiate that communication, across digital and social, and the way that you can specify that messaging, and individualize it, and how you can connect to your viewers most emotionally, than ever before.
Our obligation as an association is to provide that platform that can foster the discourse, that communication and the excitement around it.
I tell people that the local TV marketers are the DNA of our association. This association was born out of that, the original founders of the association were local promotion guys, and that is hyper critical to always remember there’s a need to serve this community.
Our goal is to take what’s been established and expand, to nurture and grow it.
For more specific information on next week’s PromaxBDA Station Summit, click here.
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