Whitney Mosley says she was scared to death before coming to this year’s PromaxBDA Station Summit. I guess that’s understandable if it’s your first time attending the one major conference dedicated to what you do, the marketing and advertising of local TV news. Mosley has been at WKRG, Nexstar’s CBS affiliate in Mobile, Ala., for […]
Whitney Mosley says she was scared to death before coming to this year’s PromaxBDA Station Summit.
I guess that’s understandable if it’s your first time attending the one major conference dedicated to what you do, the marketing and advertising of local TV news.
Mosley has been at WKRG, Nexstar’s CBS affiliate in Mobile, Ala., for 14 years, the last three as a promotions producer under Gary Wolverton, the station’s creative services director.
In fact, Mosley credits Wolverton for making it possible for her to attend.
“I absolutely loved it,” said Mosely. “I gained so much knowledge. I would encourage any CSD, if possible, to bring a producer who’s never been because they’re going to leave there inspired and excited like me, filled with confidence.”
Mosley discovered that the benefits of attending the summit can be shared by many of the staffers in any station’s creative services department. I would add that it would be eye-opening for news directors and general managers as well.
“I expected to be overwhelmed,” said Mosley, “in really long meetings that I didn’t understand. Instead, I left confident, inspired, excited, I made tons of new friends, and I got tons of promo ideas, so I pretty much went from one extreme to the other.”
The Battle of the Promo Superstars was hands down her favorite.
“The same story told four different ways, that just blew my mind,” said Mosley.
“So informative, made me feel better because there’s more than one way to promote a story based on the market and research. It helped me understand how to adapt a promo to my market.”
The Topicals That Kick Butt also scored high marks from Mosley.
“The checklist showing what not to do was very powerful and eye-opening as well.”
Mosely admits that she often chided herself for dreaming too big. But not anymore.
Because she discovered in the session, The Stuff Great Leaders Always Do (and One Thing They’d Never Do), that “you need to dream big, live loud, if it’s your passion, embrace it. That was great for me because I’m not a manager but I inspire to be and it was great for me because it made me feel as if I am on the right track.”
Mosely says the Nexstar meetings with all of the group’s creative services directors was “insightful. I learned so much and they had a great little breakout session for promo ideas. It was wonderful, absolutely wonderful.”
I asked Mosely to send me some recent promo examples from her station.
“Here are three spots that we have on air now. The first one is our Loving Living Local promo. This is Nexstar’s initiative to show that WKRG is in the community. It leaves you with a good feeling and a sense of what the Gulf Coast is like.”
“The second one is our AM Image. We give you traffic, weather and news in the mornings — proving we are Local Coverage You Can Count On.”
“The third one is our weather app. This promo shows that by downloading our free app, you’ll be weather aware on these unpredictable summer days. Let me know if you have any questions.”
NOTE: Many long-time local TV marketers will remember that before PromaxBDA and before the Station Summits, there was the Broadcast Promotion and Marketing Executives (BPME) and its annual conference every year in June going back quite a few years.
In those days, the conferences moved from city to city every year — New York, L.A., Orlando, New Orleans, Detroit, even Toronto.
I don’t remember where or when my first conference was. But I do remember that a spot I wrote in the late 1980s for an ad agency that specialized in media marketing got 3 1/2 thumbs-up from the movie critics, Siskel and Ebert, which was a regular feature of the conferences then. I still have the audio of their review somewhere.
Funny, but Siskel and Ebert suggested that there seemed to be some hanky-panky going on in the spot because the weatherman sent the dad off to work, the son off to sled and then sat down with the wife in the kitchen. So they wondered whose feet were seen in the spot’s final scene.
Have some thoughts about the Summits you want to share? Or perhaps a favorite memory of any the summits or the old BPME conferences? Let me know.
By the way, here is a list of TVNewsCheck posts from this year’s PromaxBDA Station Summit.
Local News Promo Superstars Battle On
http://marketshare.newscheckmedia.wpengine.com/2018/07/05/local-news-promo-superstars-battle/
Devlin Design Wins Promax Gold 5 Consecutive Years
How To Craft News Topicals That Retain Viewers
Stephen Arnold Gives Away More Guitars
Lee Minard Given Promax’s Lifetime Achievement Award Posthumously
Promax Summit Goes Global To Share Best Work
Alex Trebek, A Life In ‘Jeopardy’
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