WVUE, Gray’s Fox affiliate in New Orleans, took a tongue in cheek approach to its Super Bowl Sunday strategy with a series of promos for its 10 o’clock news. “We went hyper local,” said Blaine Strawn, WVUE’s marketing director. “Granted, most viewers outside of New Orleans won’t understand, but we knew our viewers would.”
WVUE, Gray’s Fox affiliate in New Orleans, took a tongue-in-cheek approach to its Super Bowl Sunday strategy with a series of hyper local promos for its 10 o’clock news.
“WVUE went in a completely different direction,” said Blaine Strawn, the station’s marketing director. “We went hyper local. Granted, most viewers outside of New Orleans won’t understand, but we knew our viewers would.”
Keep in mind that New Orleans Saints fans, which is really everybody who lives in and around the city, are still outraged over the non-call of pass interference in the 2019 NFC Championship that robbed the team of a victory. It was the most blatant example of pass interference I’ve ever seen, and for it to not be called was inexcusable. So NFL officials are persona non grata in town.
Thus, the overarching theme of the stations promotional execution: Officiating the Officials.
“We broke it down in four spots, basically three promos to promote the promo. The first two teaser spots starting airing last Thursday to generate some buzz. The two teasers and promo 1 aired throughout, then all four aired as bookends in the two breaks just before Fox’s Kick Off Show.”
“We placed the entire team in a surveillance van to Officiate the Officials,” said Strawn, “the team followed a Fox 8 sales rep (dressed like an NFL referee) around New Orleans to document his numerous local faux paus. Right now the red light camera issue is a huge controversy here, and the issue popped again up last week, perfect timing.”
In the next promo, you’re going to see a couple things that need some clarity. Let me try to explain the references here as I used to live in New Orleans. The ladders with the seats on top are for kids watching Mardi Gras parades. But people set them up weeks in advance to save their spot. The King cake is another Mardi Gras tradition. It’s a special cake shared during Mardi Gras that has a little plastic baby inside. Whoever gets the slice with the baby is promised good luck.
“Socially, we started posting the two teaser spots on Facebook and Instagram on Saturday, then the other two spots were posted sequentially on Sunday, all linking to the landing page we created,” said Strawn.
“The landing page includes bonus material we added, including a director’s cut with the entire sequence as one spot plus Kim Holden and David Bernard having fun with the fake surveillance video we shot. We received a ton of positive feedback, the landing page and the social posts did really good numbers. We are pleased with the efforts.”
NOTE: Fox affiliates across the country took advantage of the huge audience delivered by the Super Bowl to create some outstanding news promos.
WBRC, Gray’s Fox affiliate in Birmingham, Ala. (DMA 44), unveiled a testimonial campaign from tornado survivors who thank the station’s First Alert weather team for saving their lives.
KPTV, Meredith’s Fox affiliate in Portland, Ore. (DMA 22), used Lego art to create a highly visible and original campaign for its morning news program, Good Day Oregon.
At KOKH, Sinclair’s Fox affiliate in Oklahoma City (DMA 43), the station wanted to “rock the idea of what news promotion can be,” said Ethan Edwards, KOKH’s creative services director, talking about the spot his team put together for the Super Bowl.
WDAF, Nexstar’s Fox affiliate in Kansas City, Mo. (DMA 32), debuted a music image promo using a hip-hop/rap song to seize the opportunity of the station’s 94.7 share of the audience with a rating of 58.6 during the Super Bowl.
WDRB, Block Communications’ Fox affiliate in Louisville, Ky. (DMA 48), took advantage of the all the eyeballs watching its station before, during and after the Super Bowl to air a new campaign called Where Louisville Happens.
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